Quantum Integrated Network Timing Robert M Broberg

Format:

Book

Thesis/Dissertation

Author/Creator:

Broberg, Robert M., author.

Contributor:

University of Pennsylvania. Electrical and Systems Engineering., degree granting institution.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

0216.

0544.

0599.

0605.

Local Subjects:

0216.

0544.

0599.

0605.

Physical Description:

1 electronic resource (126 pages)

Contained In:

Dissertations Abstracts International 87-07B

Place of Publication:

Ann Arbor : ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, 2025

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This dissertation presents Quantum Integrated Network Timing (QuINT), a modular platform that introduces entangled-photon pairs as timing signals into the Internet's IP and WDM optical networks. For billions of devices and for the Internet itself, the Network Time Protocol (NTP) serves as the dominant source of time distribution. While NTP provides essential global synchronization, its accuracy is fundamentally constrained by queueing delays, environmental noise, asymmetric routing, oscillator instability, and other sources of network and hardware variation, limiting the timing accuracy available to modern distributed systems. QuINT integrates Si3N4 photon-pair sources, high-speed SNSPD and SPAD detectors, FPGA-based timestamping, and the Quantum Datagram Control Protocol (QDCP) into a platform compatible with today's Internet infrastructure. The platform performs real-time correlation of photon arrival times and provides access to timing offsets with picosecond-scale resolution derived from femtosecond intrinsic timing correlations. Wavelength-division multiplexing enables many simultaneous quantum timing channels, offering precision improvements that scale as 1/√N . Recent experimental results demonstrate that hybrid quantum-classical silicon-photonic sources and detectors can operate reliably within heterogeneous network environments, enabling coincidence- based timing cues to be transported over commercial IP optical infrastructure. These findings establish that entangled-photon correlations can coexist with classical traffic and provide timing information comparable to laser-pulse systems, which achieve synchronization on the order of a few picoseconds. Building on this foundation, the analytical framework developed in this dissertation evaluates how quantum-derived timing cues could augment classical synchronization systems, particularly by improving short-term stability and reducing sensitivity to network-induced asymmetry

Notes:

Advisors: Smith, Johnathan M.; Feng, Liang Committee members: Engheta, Nader; Yodh, Arjun; O'Brien, Allyson

Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 87-07, Section: B.

Ph.D. University of Pennsylvania 2025

Vendor supplied data

Local Notes:

School code: 0175

ISBN:

9798276001906

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license