Systems and methods for real-time polarization drift compensation in optical fiber channels used for quantum communications

A method for correcting a polarization of quantum data photons, the method comprising:

• determining a difference between an initial polarization of one or more probe photons at a first photon source configured to produce the one or more probe photons and a final polarization of the one or more probe photons after propagating through a length of optical fiber;
• determining, using a machine learning model and/or a lookup table, a feedback parameter based on the difference between the initial polarization and the final polarization;
• and
• using the feedback parameter, changing a parameter of a polarization modulator coupled to the optical fiber to change a polarization of subsequent quantum data photons at the polarization modulator, the quantum data photons being generated by a second photon source.

A method for correcting a polarization of one or more photons, the method comprising:

• determining a difference between an initial polarization of the one or more photons at a photon source configured to produce the one or more photons and a final polarization of the one or more photons after propagating through a length of optical fiber, wherein the difference comprises a quantum bit error rate;
• determining, using a machine learning model and/or a lookup table, a feedback parameter based on the difference between the initial polarization and the final polarization;
• and
• using the feedback parameter, changing a parameter of a polarization modulator coupled to the optical fiber to change a polarization of subsequent photons at the polarization modulator.