Efficient entanglement purification in quantum repeaters

We present an efficient entanglement purification protocol (EPP) with controlled-not (CNOT) gates and linear optics. With the CNOT gates, our EPP can reach a higher fidelity than the conventional one. Moreover, it does not require the fidelity of the initial mixed state to satisfy F>1/2. If the initial state is not entangled, it still can be purified. With the linear optics, this protocol can get pure maximally entangled pairs with some probabilities. Meanwhile, it can be used to purify the entanglement between the atomic ensembles in distant locations. This protocol may be useful in long-distance quantum communication.     

Electronic cluster state entanglement concentration based on charge detection

We propose an efficient entanglement concentration protocol （ECP） based on electron-spin cluster states assisted with single electrons. In the ECP, we adopt the electron polarization beam splitter （PBS） and the charge detector to construct the quantum nondemolition measurement. According to the result of the measurement of the charge detection, we can ultimately obtain the maximally entangled cluster states. Moreover, the discarded items can be reused in the next round to reach a high success probability. This ECP may be useful in current solid quantum computation.     

Surface modification of polytetrafluoroethylene film using single liquid electrode atmospheric- pressure glow discharge

Polytetrafluoroethylene films are treated by room temperature helium atmospheric pressure plasma plumes, which are generated with a home-made single liquid electrode plasma device. After plasma treatment, the water contact angle of polytetrafluoroethylene film drops from 114°to 46°and the surface free energy increases from 22.0 mJ/m2 to 59.1 mJ/m2. The optical emission spectrum indicates that there are reactive species such as O2+ , O and He in the plasma plume. After plasma treatment, a highly crosslinking structure is formed on the film surface and the oxygen element is incorporated into the film surface in the forms of -C-O-C-, -C=O, and -O-C=O groups. Over a period of 10 days, the contact angle of the treated film is recovered by only about 10 , which indicates that the plasma surface modification is stable with time.     

Effect of pulsed bias on the properties of ZrN/TiZrN films deposited by a cathodic vacuum arc

ZrN/TiZrN multilayers are deposited by using the cathodic vacuum arc method with different substrate bias(from 0 to 800 V),using Ti and Zr plasma flows in residual N 2 atmosphere,combined with ion bombardment of sample surfaces.The effect of pulsed bias on the structure and properties of films is investigated.Microstructure of the coating is analyzed by X-ray diffraction(XRD),and scanning electron microscopy(SEM).In addition,nanohardness,Young’s modulus,and scratch tests are performed.The experimental results show that the films exhibit a nanoscale multilayer structure consisting of TiZrN and ZrN phases.Solid solutions are formed for component TiZrN films.The dominant preferred orientation of TiZrN films is(111) and(220).At a pulsed bias of 200 V,the nanohardness and the adhesion strength of the ZrN/TiZrN multilayer reach a maximum of 38 GPa,and 78 N,respectively.The ZrN/TiZrN multilayer demonstrates an enhanced nanohardness compared with binary TiN and ZrN films deposited under equivalent conditions.     

Efficient electronic entanglement concentration assisted by single mobile electrons

We present an efficient entanglement concentration protocol （ECP） for mobile electrons with charge detection. This protocol is quite different from other ECPs for one can obtain a maximally entangled pair from a pair of less-entangled state and a single mobile electron with a certain probability. With the help of charge detection, it can be repeated to reach a higher success probability. It also does not need to know the coefficient of the original less-entangled states. All these advantages may make this protocol useful in current distributed quantum information processing.     

Consequent entanglement concentration of a less-entangled electronic cluster state with controlled-not gates

We present a highly efficient entanglement concentration protocol （ECP） for a four-electron system in a less-entangled cluster state. In this ECP, we only require one pair of less-entangled electron cluster states and one ancillary electron to complete the task. With the help of the controlled-not （CNOT） gate, the concentrated maximally entangled state can be retained for further application with some success probability. On the other hand, the discarded items can be reused to obtain a high success probability. All the features make this ECP useful in the current quantum information field.     

Efficient entanglement concentration for arbitrary less-entangled NOON state assisted by single photons

We put forward two efficient entanglement concentration protocols(ECPs) for arbitrary less-entangled NOON state.Both ECPs only require one pair of less-entangled NOON state and an auxiliary photon.In the first ECP,the auxiliary photon is shared by two parties,while in the second ECP,the auxiliary photon is only possessed by one party,which can increase the practical success probability by avoiding the transmission loss and simplify the operations.Moreover,both ECPs can be used repeatedly to get a high success probability.Based on the above features,our two ECPs,especially the second one,may be useful in the quantum information processing.     

Hybrid entanglement concentration assisted with single coherent state

Hybrid entangled state(HES) is a new type of entanglement, which combines the advantages of an entangled polarization state and an entangled coherent state. HES is widely discussed in the applications of quantum communication and computation. In this paper, we propose three entanglement concentration protocols(ECPs) for Bell-type HES, W-type HES, and cluster-type HES, respectively. After performing these ECPs, we can obtain the maximally entangled HES with some success probability. All the ECPs exploit the single coherent state to complete the concentration. These protocols are based on the linear optics, which are feasible in future experiments.     

Measurement-device-independent one-step quantum secure direct communication

The one-step quantum secure direct communication (QSDC) (Sci. Bull. 67, 367 (2022)) can effectively simplify QSDC's operation and reduce message loss. For enhancing its security under practical experimental condition, we propose two measurement-device-independent (MDI) one-step QSDC protocols, which can resist all possible attacks from imperfect measurement devices. In both protocols, the communication parties prepare identical polarization-spatial-mode two-photon hyperentangled states and construct the hyperentanglement channel by hyperentanglement swapping. The first MDI one-step QSDC protocol adopts the nonlinear-optical complete hyperentanglement Bell state measurement (HBSM) to construct the hyperentanglement channel, while the second protocol adopts the linear-optical partial HBSM. Then, the parties encode the photons in the polarization degree of freedom and send them to the third party for the hyperentanglement-assisted complete polarization Bell state measurement. Both protocols are unconditionally secure in theory. The simulation results show the MDI one-step QSDC protocol with complete HBSM attains the maximal communication distance of about 354 km. Our MDI one-step QSDC protocols may have potential applications in the future quantum secure communication field.     

Efficient entanglement purification in quantum repeaters

We present an efficient entanglement purification protocol(EPP) with controlled-not(CNOT) gates and linear optics.With the CNOT gates,our EPP can reach a higher fidelity than the conventional one.Moreover,it does not require the fidelity of the initial mixed state to satisfy F > 1/2.If the initial state is not entangled,it still can be purified.With the linear optics,this protocol can get pure maximally entangled pairs with some probabilities.Meanwhile,it can be used to purify the entanglement between the atomic ensembles in distant locations.This protocol may be useful in long-distance quantum communication.