Non-local temporal interferometry for highly resilient free-space quantum communication

Abstract: Entanglement distribution via photons over long distances enables many applications, including quantum key distribution (QKD), which provides unprecedented privacy. The inevitable degradation of entanglement through noise accumulated over long distances remains one of the key challenges in this area. Exploiting the potential of higher-dimensional entangled photons promises to address this challenge, but poses extreme demands on the experimental implementation. Here, we present an interstate free-space quantum link, distributing hyper-entanglement over $10.2\,$km with flexible dimensionality of encoding by deploying a phase-stable non-local Franson interferometer. With this distribution of multidimensional energy-time entangled photons, we analyse the achievable key rate in a dimensionally-adaptive QKD protocol that can be optimized with respect to any environmental noise conditions. Our approach enables and emphasises the power of high-dimensional entanglement for quantum communication, yielding a positive asymptotic key rate well into the dawn of the day.