With enough computing effort most contemporary security systems will be
broken. But a research team at the University of Sydney has made a major
breakthrough in generating single photons (light particles), as carriers of quantum information in security systems.
The collaboration involving physicists at the Centre for Ultrahigh
bandwidth Devices for Optical Systems (CUDOS), an ARC Centre of
Excellence headquartered in the School of Physics, and electrical
engineers from the School of Electrical and Information Engineering, has
been published inNature Communications.
The team's work resolved a key issue holding back the development of
password exchange which can only be broken by violating the laws of
physics. Photons are generated in a pair, and detecting one indicates
the existence of the other. This allows scientists to manage the timing
of photon events so that they always arrive at the time they are
expected.
Lead author Dr Chunle Xiong, from the School of Physics, said: "Quantum
communication and computing are the next generation technologies poised
to change the world."
Among a number of quantum systems, optical systems offer particularly
easy access to quantum effects. Over the past few decades, many building
blocks for optical quantum information processing have developed
quickly," Dr Xiong said.
"Implementing optical quantum technologies has now come down to one
fundamental challenge: having indistinguishable single photons
on-demand," he said.
"This research has demonstrated that the odds of being able to generate a
single photon can be doubled by using a relatively simple technique --
and this technique can be scaled up to ultimately generate single
photons with 100% probability."
0 comments:
Post a Comment