Method and Apparatus for Quantum Mechanical Entanglement Protection

Embodiments of the present invention provide systems and methods to robustly inter-convert between polarization-entangled photon pairs and time-entangled photon pairs, such that produced polarization-entangled photons pairs can be converted into time-entangled photon pairs, stored as time-entangled photon pairs to preserve the entanglement for longer periods of time, and then converted back to polarization-entangled photon pairs when ready for manipulation, processing, and measurement by a quantum application.