Ultra-Secure Quantum Data Sent over Existing Internet Cables

Another step towards a quantum internet has been completed and it does not require any special communication equipment. Two data centers in Germany have exchanged quantum -safe information using pre -existing telecommunications fibers at room temperature. This is unlike most quantum communication, which often requires cooling to extremely low temperatures to protect quantum particles from disorders in their environment.

Quantum Internet, where information can be exchanged extremely safely thanks to Beng coded in quantum particles of light called photons, quickly makes forums to the world outside the laboratory. In March, a microsatellite activated a quantum connection between group stations in China and South Africa. A few weeks earlier, the first operating system for quantum communication networks was revealed.

Now Mirko Pittaluga in Toshiba Europe Limited and Hans Colleugues has felt quantum information through optical fiber between two plants about 250 kilometers apart in Kehl and Frankfurt, Germany. The information also passed through a third station between them, just over 150 kilometers from Frankfurt.

Photons can be lost or destroyed as they cross long distances through fiber optic cables, so large iterations of the quantum internet require “quantum repeaters” which will mitigate these losses. In this setup, Midway Station played a similar role, enabling the network to surpass the past tested and simpler connections between the two final points.

In a remarkable improvic on previous quantum networks, the team is the fiber, as well as units that can be easy, there are lightweight racks that already houses traditional telecommunications equipment. This eventually strengthens the case for the quantum internet a plug-and-play operation.

The researchers also used photo detectors that are much cheaper than those who use in past experience. Although some of the earlier experiment spans hundreds of kilometers more, the use of these detectors reduces both costs and energy needs in the new network, says Raja Yehia at the Department of Photonic Sciences in Spain.

Prem Kumar at Northwestern University in Illinois says the use of the quantum communication protocol they have here on commercially available equipment emphasizes how Quantworks is approaching practically. “A system engineer could look at this and see that it works,” says Kumar. However, to be fully convenient, the network had to exchange information faster, he says.

Mehdi Namazi at quantum communication start Qunect in New York says this approach can be advantageous for future networks of quantum computers or quantum sensors, but it is still not as effective as if it included a real quantum of repetition.