Complete hyperentangled Bell state analysis for polarization and time-bin hyperentanglement

We present a complete hyperentangled Bell state analysis protocol for two-photon four-qubit states that are simultaneously entangled in the polarization and time-bin degrees of freedom. The 16 hyperentangled states can be unambiguously distinguished via two steps. In the first step, the polarization entangled state is distinguished deterministically and nondestructively with the help of the cross-Kerr nonlinearity. Then, in the second step, the time-bin state is analyzed with the aid of the polarization entanglement. We also discuss the applications of our protocol for quantum information processing. Compared with hyperentanglement in polarization and spatial-mode degrees of freedom, the polarization and time-bin hyperentangled states provide savings in quantum resources since there is no requirement for two spatial modes for each photon. This is the first complete hyperentangled Bell state analysis scheme for polarization and time-bin hyperentangled states, and it can provide new avenues for high-capacity, long-distance quantum communication. (C) 2016 Optical Society of America