Q‑FIBER

In the age of Quan­tum Com­pu­ters and high-per­for­mance com­pu­ting, it can­not be gua­ran­teed that com­mon asym­me­tric encryp­ti­on methods will pro­vi­de suf­fi­ci­ent pro­tec­tion in the future. Quan­tum Com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on, on the other hand, pro­mi­ses a key trans­mis­si­on (QKD) that, due to its phy­si­cal pro­per­ties, offers the secu­ri­ty that the key exch­an­ge can­not be eaves­drop­ped and that any eaves­drop­ping attempt will be noti­ced. For indus­tri­al appli­ca­ti­ons this requi­res sca­lable solu­ti­ons that relia­bly trans­mit sta­ble Quan­tum Sta­tes through opti­cal fibers. A chall­enge lies in lin­king the various devices, such as Quan­tum Light Sources and detec­tors, as well as in the inter­ac­tion with clas­si­cal hard­ware.

Goal of the Q‑Fiber pro­ject is to demons­tra­te Quan­tum Com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on in a net­work with four com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on par­ti­ci­pan­ts, exem­pli­fied in the medi­cal sec­tor. Health data are encrypt­ed and exch­an­ged bet­ween net­work par­ti­ci­pan­ts using ent­an­gled pho­ton-pairs. For the trans­mis­si­on and cost-effec­ti­ve detec­tion of pho­tons within the exis­ting IT infra­struc­tu­re new types of fiber optic cables are to be rese­ar­ched and used. The­se cables con­tain so-cal­led hol­low-core fibers which enable the simul­ta­neous trans­mis­si­on of clas­si­cal com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on signals and ent­an­gled pho­tons. In addi­ti­on, within the pro­ject exis­ting hard­ware secu­ri­ty modu­les are exten­ded with sui­ta­ble inter­faces and secu­ri­ty ana­ly­ses of the over­all sys­tem are exe­cu­ted.

Part­ners:
• Quan­tum Optics Jena GmbH, Jena
• Fraun­ho­fer-Insti­tut für Ange­wand­te Optik und Fein­me­cha­nik (IOF), Jena
• Ulti­ma­co IS GmbH, Aachen
• Tech­ni­sche Uni­ver­si­tät (TU), Ber­lin
• Hoch­schu­le Nord­hau­sen, Nord­hau­sen