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Temporally multiplexed ion-photon quantum interface via fast ion-chain transport

Bingran You1,2,*, Qiming Wu1,2,*,†, David Miron1,2, Wenjun Ke1, Inder Monga2, Erhan Saglamyurek1,2, and Hartmut Haeffner1,2,‡

  • *These authors contributed equally to this work.
  • †Contact author: qiming.wu@berkeley.edu
  • ‡Contact author: hhaeffner@berkeley.edu
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Phys. Rev. Applied 26, 014101 – Published 30 July, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/ppm8-8kx5

Abstract

High-rate remote entanglement between photon and matter-based qubits is essential for distributed quantum information processing. A key technique to increase the modest entangling rates of existing long-distance quantum networking approaches is multiplexing. Here, we demonstrate a temporally multiplexed ion-photon interface via rapid transport of a chain of nine calcium ions across 74  μm within 86  μs. The nonclassical nature of the multiplexed photons is verified by measuring the second-order correlation function with an average value of g(2)(0)=0.060(13). This indicates low crosstalk of about 1% between the multiplexed modes, which can be reduced further once coupling of the photons to a single-mode fiber is incorporated. In addition, we characterize the motional degree-of-freedom of the ion crystal after transport and find that it is coherently excited to n¯α≈110 for the center-of-mass mode. Our proof-of-principle implementation paves the way for large-scale quantum networking with trapped ions, but highlights some challenges that must be overcome.

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Phys. Rev. Applied 26, 014101– Published 30 July, 2026
  • Received 10 June 2024
  • Revised 21 May 2026
  • Accepted 7 July 2026
Article part of CHORUS
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