Single-photon source paves the way for practical quantum encryption

Phys.org  March 23, 2022 Researchers in Australia have developed an on-demand way to generate photons with high purity in a scalable and portable system that operates at room temperature. They combined hexagonal boron nitride with a hemispherical solid immersion lens, which increases the source’s efficiency by a factor of six. They incorporated the single-photon source into a fully portable device that can perform QKD. They demonstrated that it could produce over ten million single photons per second at room temperature. The streamlined device is easier to use and much smaller than traditional optical table setups allowing the system to be […]

Space-borne quantum source to secure communication

Phys.org  October 1, 2018 Researchers in Germany developed a remarkably stable yet powerful quantum source which can generate 300,000 entangled photon pairs per second when the light from a laser beam hits a non-linear crystal. The twinned light particles enable sensitive messages to be securely encrypted. The two photons’ polarization remains entangled no matter how far apart they may be. This allows two communicating parties to produce and share keys and immediately detect if a third-party attempts to intercept their communication. If an unauthorized party tampers with the message, the two photons disentangle to reveal that a hacking attempt is […]