Journal
OPTICS EXPRESS
Volume 21, Issue 17, Pages 20032-20040Publisher
OPTICAL SOC AMER
DOI: 10.1364/OE.21.020032
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Funding
- National Fundamental Research Program [2011CB921300, 2013CB336800]
- Chinese Academy of Sciences
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
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Free-space quantum communication with satellites opens a promising avenue for global secure quantum network and large-scale test of quantum foundations. Recently, numerous experimental efforts have been carried out towards this ambitious goal. However, one essential step - transmitting single photons from the satellite to the ground with high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at realistic environments - remains experimental challenging. Here, we report a direct experimental demonstration of the satellite-ground transmission of a quasi-single-photon source. In the experiment, single photons (similar to 0.85 photon per pulse) are generated by reflecting weak laser pulses back to earth with a cube-corner retro-reflector on the satellite CHAMP, collected by a 600-mm diameter telescope at the ground station, and finally detected by single-photon counting modules after 400-km free-space link transmission. With the help of high accuracy time synchronization, narrow receiver field-of-view and high-repetition-rate pulses (76 MHz), a SNR of better than 16: 1 is obtained, which is sufficient for a secure quantum key distribution. Our experimental results represent an important step towards satellite-ground quantum communication. (C) 2013 Optical Society of America
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