Using classical coding, a single photon will convey only one of two messages - one bit of information. In dense coding, a single photon can convey one of four messages - two bits of information.
University of Illinois researchers say they have broken the record for the most amount of information sent by a single photon using the direction of “wiggling” and “twisting” of a pair of hyper-entangled photons. Doing so, they have beaten a fundamental limit on the channel capacity for dense coding with linear optics.
“Dense coding is arguably the protocol that launched the field of quantum communication,” said Paul Kwiat, a John Bardeen Professor of Physics and Electrical and Computer Engineering. “Today, however, more than a decade after its initial experimental realization, channel capacity has remained fundamentally limited as conceived for photons using conventional linear elements.”