Flexible Entanglement Distribution Based on WDM and Active Switching Technology

In future, the distribution of single or entangled photons inside optical networks will be a prerequisite for a general roll-out and adoption of quantum communication technologies. In particular, on-demand routing and active wavelength allocation will be needed to meet the demand of complex network architectures. In the last years several attempts have been made, based either on passive optical WDM technology or active switching of channels. Here we present a novel approach whereby we combine spectral slicing of the emission spectrum of photon-pair sources together with space-switches to generate a reconfigurable distribution node for entanglement. The increased switching complexity offered by our hybrid solution allows us to realise quantum reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexers (ROADMs) with up to three degrees.