QR.N Consortium meets in Bad Honnef for Scientific Exchange:
Around one and a half years after the launch of the joint project “Quantenrepeater.Net (QR.N)”, more than 90 researchers – including representatives of the umbrella project – gathered at the Physikzentrum Bad Honnef (PBH) in mid-June to take stock of the project’s progress and discuss the next steps towards future Quantum Networks. The two-day status meeting focused on current research results, exchange among project partners and platforms, and the strategic direction for the second half of the project duration.
Following a welcome address by the project spokesperson, Prof. Dr. Christoph Becher (Universität des Saarlandes), who highlighted that the project had reached its halfway point, the meeting began with status reports from the individual platforms. Platform leaders Prof. Dr. Sven Hoefling (Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg), Prof. Dr. Peter Michler (Universität Stuttgart), Prof. Dr. Peter van Loock (Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz), Prof. Dr. David Hunger (Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT)), and Prof. Dr. Jürgen Eschner (Universität des Saarlandes) presented recent advances in the fields of semiconductors, theory, diamond, as well as atoms and ions. Their presentations illustrated the diversity of research approaches within the consortium and highlighted the progress achieved over the past months. A particular highlight was the hot topic talk by Prof. Dr. Gerhard Rempe (Max-Planck-Institut für Quantenoptik). In his presentation entitled “Multi-qubit entanglement – A glimpse through the rabbit hole”, he provided insights into current experiments on multi-qubit entanglement, which attracted considerable interest among the participants. The subsequent poster session and joint barbecue offered numerous opportunities to continue scientific discussions and establish new connections within the network.
The second day broadened the perspective beyond the consortium itself by focusing on European initiatives and developments in the field of Quantum Communication. Prof. Dr. Stephanie Wehner (Delft University of Technology / QuTech) presented the goals and activities of the Quantum Internet Alliance (QIA) and explained the foundations and potential of a future Quantum Internet. In the following talk, Dr. Hannes Hübel (Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT)) provided insights into the European Quantum Communication Infrastructure (EuroQCI) and discussed challenges related to the implementation and operation of Quantum Communication Systems. Following platform-internal meetings, the participants came together for a concluding discussion. Prof. Dr. Christoph Becher drew a preliminary conclusion and placed the results presented during the previous two days into the broader context of QR.N. At the same time, he outlined the key tasks and objectives for the second half of the project.
With an overall positive interim assessment, the QR.N status meeting in Bad Honnef came to a close. SQuaD once again gained diverse insights into the current developments of the joint project and was able to further deepen the technical exchange with the participants. The focus now turns to the upcoming project phases within QR.N.