A wireless link builds the nation’s longest quantum network
Brookhaven National Laboratory has added a free-space optical segment to a quantum network connecting it with Stony Brook University and Yale University. The permanent wireless link runs 161 miles across Long Island and the New York metropolitan area and is described as the first of its kind. It gives the existing network a wireless component alongside its fiber infrastructure.
AI analysis — not reported by the source
What this could mean
- 0–2 yearsLikely
A permanent 161-mile free-space link between Brookhaven, Stony Brook, and Yale could allow sustained, calendar-year measurement of photon loss and atmospheric turbulence on entanglement distribution, producing the availability data needed to decide where hybrid fiber/free-space quantum repeaters can be deployed.
Free-space optical links are sensitive to weather and turbulence, so a permanent installation is a precondition for collecting seasonal uptime and error statistics; the three-node academic network provides a realistic metropolitan path with existing quantum hardware, and such operational data would inform repeater placement and link budget assumptions for future hybrid networks.
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