A systematic experimental characterization of novel modulation schemes for quantum-enhanced classical communication

The exponential growth of the internet is currently fulfilled by optical communication, but photonic communication channels are on the verge of a capacity crunch. We systematically study the use of bandwidth and energy of quantum-enhanced communication channels for classical information with different practical encodings. We introduce hybrid encoding protocols with a simultaneous coherent frequency and phase modulation and optimize them for the most advantageous quantum measurement at the receiver. We experimentally map the energy and bandwidth use for the optimization of practical resource-limited channels using a tabletop platform. We also report the initial progress on developing an integrated telecom testbed.