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University of Ottawa researchers announced they have taken a significant step toward making quantum communications more practical by using light itself to correct atmospheric turbulence, one of the biggest problems in free-space transmission.
Aaron Cardoso, University of Ottawa
The research team employed stimulated parametric down-conversion, or StimPDC, a nonlinear optical process that can counter spatial distortions in a quantum signal without the expensive digital adaptive optics systems often used to compensate for turbulence.
In an interview with EE Times, Aaron Cardoso, physicist and research assistant at the University of Ottawa (uOttawa), said the idea came from rethinking the problem rather than fighting turbulence with more hardware. The research team used a fundamental optical process to correct the effects of turbulence in real time, a largely unexplored approach.
He said the project builds on quantum mechanics’ security advantages, including the non-cloning principle, which makes quantum information difficult to copy or intercept.
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While it’s useful to encode information in “a quantum system of the light,” Cardoso said, it must go through a path of atmospheric turbulence, including temperature changes, that will scramble the information.
Rather than trying to estimate and digitally reverse the turbulence after the fact, uOttawa researchers said they used a probe beam to capture the channel’s distortion, then combined that information with the encoded quantum signal inside a nonlinear crystal. The process produces a phase-conjugated output that acts like a mirror image of the turbulence, helping restore the message at the receiving end.
Cardoso explained the StimPDC scheme as follows: Bob sends a Gaussian beam through a turbulent transmission channel to probe the turbulence, causing the beam to acquire phase distortions. Meanwhile, Alice pumps a thin nonlinear crystal with a laser beam encoded with the spatial mode she wants to transmit to Bob.
(a) is the energy level description of StimPDC, while (b) illustrates the StimPDC scheme, and (c) shows how the idler field carries the target transmission mode together with the phase-conjugate of the turbulence distortions, resulting in the phase distortions of the returning beam being canceled. (Source: Aaron Cardoso | uOttawa)
Alice then seeds the crystal along the signal path with the distorted probe beam, allowing the idler field to carry her target transmission mode together with the phase conjugate of the turbulence distortions. The idler photon now carries conjugate phase information of the turbulence that effectively offsets the phase distortions acquired during the return path.
Cardoso said the proposed scheme requires further optimization to fully exploit the distortion-correction capabilities of StimPDC.
The research included theory, simulation, and laboratory experiments at uOttawa’s Advanced Research Complex, and was recently published in Optica, an open-access, online-only journal publishing peer-reviewed research across the entire spectrum of optics and photonics. Both numerical simulations and experimental results show that, even under strong turbulence, the uOttawa researchers’ scheme can reduce the quantum error rates well below the security threshold. Cardoso said the lab results are promising, but the next challenge is moving from proof of principle to more realistic conditions. “You want it to actually work between the ground and a satellite or between two buildings or in a fiber optic system,” he said.
The next step for the researchers is proving security and testing the system over short outdoor distances, possibly on campus first. “We would like to actually prove that this system is secure,” Cardoso said. “Then the next step definitely would be to try to prove it in a more realistic scenario.”
Cardoso estimated that broader real-world testing could take about five years, in part because atmospheric conditions change from season to season and from summer to winter, especially in Canada.
He said the research work could lead to lower-cost quantum communication systems that could help strengthen digital security over time, especially in settings where turbulence has made free-space links difficult to use.
The research at uOttawa is just one of many secure quantum communications efforts underway in Canada, driven in large part by the anticipation that quantum technologies will be able to break classical encryption.
The National Research Council of Canada recently launched its Quantum Safe Technologies Initiative, which focuses on post-quantum cryptography, testing frameworks, and the design of quantum-safe communication systems and hybrid quantum-classical networks for critical sectors, including defense and telecommunications.
Numana’s KIRQ, meanwhile, is a Quebec-based quantum communications testbed deployed across Sherbrooke, Montreal, and Quebec City that lets companies and researchers test quantum and classical networking technologies under real-world conditions to reduce risk, accelerate progress, and support quantum-safe communications and standardization efforts.
Meanwhile, Canada’s flagship space-based quantum communication mission, Quantum EncrYption and Science Satellite (QEYSSat), is designed to demonstrate quantum key distribution (QKD) from low-Earth orbit (LEO) to provide virtually unbreakable encryption for secure communications in the quantum computing era.
See also:
Canadian Researchers Tackle Ultra-Thin Magnet Heat Limitations
Photonics Lights Up Canada’s Semiconductor Scene
AI AND BIG DATA, BIG DATA, PHOTONICS, QUANTUM, QUANTUM COMMUNICATIONS