Passive Quantum Interconnects: High-Fidelity Quantum Networking at Higher Rates with Less Overhead

High-fidelity, high-rate quantum interconnect is a fundamental building block of scalable quantum technologies. The cavity-assisted photon scattering (CAPS) approach is an attractive alternative to commonly used active protocols based on photon emission and two-photon interference: it offers higher success probability and greater intrinsic robustness to imperfections, while remaining a passive operation that does not require complex atom excitation sequences or intermodule synchronization. Despite these advantages, CAPS has not been a primary choice for quantum interconnect protocols since the estimated fidelity and the rate of CAPS-based networking have been severely limited in existing protocols and analysis frameworks. In this work, we eliminate these limitations by protocol improvements aided by a thorough analysis of the atom-cavity dynamics, to demonstrate that existing or near-term optical cavity qualities are sufficient for achieving a fidelity of 0.999 with short optical pulses required for high-rate networking. We show that efficient time-multiplexed operation is possible with suppressed crosstalk, enabling high-rate entanglement generation. We also propose a hybrid network configuration leveraging both photon emission and CAPS gates, eliminating the need for external photon sources while maintaining performance and robustness. As a concrete example, with 200 ¹⁷¹Yb atoms coupled to a cavity with internal cooperativity 100, atom-atom entanglement generation rate of 4 × 10⁵~s⁻¹ is estimated at a fidelity of 0.999, with further speedup beyond 10⁶~s⁻¹ anticipated by the use of multiple wavelength channels. Our results establish the CAPS-based network protocol as a leading candidate for scaling quantum information platforms.