A Universal Quantum Information Preserving Photonic Switch for Scalable Quantum Networks

Quantum networks are a keystone of the quantum internet. However, existing implementations remain largely confined to static point-to-point links due to the absence of a switching paradigm capable of dynamically routing fragile quantum entanglement without introducing decoherence. Here, we propose the Universal Quantum Switch, a foundational building block allowing on-demand, non-blocking, and encoding-agnostic routing of quantum information, as well as seamless modality conversion between disparate quantum platforms. We develop a prototype in thin-film lithium niobate and experimentally demonstrate robust switching with $\le 4\%$ decoherence via thermo-optic modulation and high-speed electro-optic switching of arbitrary entangled states at 1 MHz. Moreover, we show that our platform can support reconfiguration speeds up to 1 GHz. To our knowledge, this work represents the first demonstration of multi-node dynamic entanglement distribution at these speeds. Complementing these experimental results, we project the architecture's scalability, showing dimension-independent decoherence, and provide a scalable, interoperable building block for heterogeneous quantum network fabrics.

Source: arXiv:2604.21902v1 - http://arxiv.org/abs/2604.21902v1 PDF: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2604.21902v1 Original Link: http://arxiv.org/abs/2604.21902v1