Assessing a binary quantum channel exploiting a Silicon photomultiplier based hybrid receiver

Abstract: In quantum communication protocols, the use of photon-number-resolving detectors could open new perspectives by broadening the way to encode and decode information, and merging the properties of discrete and continuous variables. In this work, we consider a quantum channel exploiting a Silicon-photomultiplier-based receiver and evaluate its performance for quantum communication protocols under three possible configurations, defined by different post-processing of the detection outcomes. We investigate two scenarios: information transmission over the channel, quantified by the mutual information, and continuous-variable quantum key distribution. The preliminary results encourage further use of this detection scheme in extended networks.