Cooperative quantum interface for noise mitigation in quantum networks

Quantum frequency converters that enable the interface between the itinerant photons and qubits are indispensable for realizing long-distance quantum networks. However, the cascaded connection between converters and qubits usually brings additional insertion loss and intermediate noises. Here, we propose a cooperative quantum interface that integrates the converter and qubit coupling into a single device for efficient long-distance entanglement generation. Compared to traditional cascaded systems, our scheme offers several advantages, including compactness, reduced insertion loss, and suppression of noise from intermediate modes. We prove the excellent performance over the separated devices by about two orders of magnitude for the entangled infidelity of two remote nodes. Moreover, we discuss an extended scheme for multiple remote nodes, revealing an exponential advantage in performance as the number of nodes increases. The cooperative effect is universal that can be further applied to multifunctional integrated quantum devices. This work opens up novel prospects for quantum networks, distributed quantum computing, and sensing.