SC266 Quantum Cryptography and Quantum Information

Monday, March 23, 2009
1:30 p.m.–4:30 p.m.
Richard Hughes¹, Thomas Chapuran²; ¹Los Alamos Natl. Lab, USA, ²Telcordia, USA
Level: Beginner (no background or minimal training is necessary to understand course material)

Course Description

This course will describe the new and rapidly expanding field of quantum communications, which promises to revolutionize some aspects of communication networks. It will provide a view of an early application of quantum information and quantum communications, namely quantum cryptography and why it may be of interest for the OFC community. After a brief motivation as to "what is cryptography" and "What are the limitations with conventional cryptography," the course will provide a high-level view of quantum cryptography and quantum key distribution. The course will provide a brief history of quantum cryptography from its inception to the present time and will walk through detailed examples of how the BB-84 QKD protocol works. The course will then turn to the realities of real-world light sources and photon detectors. The course will include both fiber and free space environments and will identify and summarize some of the major efforts worldwide in this area. Finally the course will introduce the EPR paradox and quantum entanglement and teleportation, and will briefly describe how the single Qubit systems used in QKD set the stage for multi-qubit quantum information systems for the future.

Benefits and Learning Objectives

This course should enable you to:

  • Identify benefits of quantum key distribution techniques.
  • Determine free-space and fiber based applications.
  • Describe single photon sources and compute their expected characteristics.
  • Describe concepts of quantum entanglement.
  • Determine appropriate networking applications for quantum communications.
  • Describe quantum teleportation.

Intended Audience

The audience may include optical networking and optoelectronic technology researchers with an interest in quantum communications, managers of research groups and engineers who want a glimpse of a new and forward looking technology. An undergraduate-level understanding of quantum mechanics is helpful.

Biography

Richard J. Hughes is a Laboratory Fellow at the Los Alamos National Lab. He is co-principal investigator of projects in both free-space and optical fiber based quantum key distribution and holds two U.S. patents in these areas. He obtained his doctorate from the University of Liverpool and has held positions at Oxford University, Queens College Oxford, Caltech, CERN and the University of Oslo. His awards include the Los Alamos Distinguished Performance Award, Los Alamos Fellow's Prize, co-winner of an R&D Development 100 Award for "Free Space Quantum Cryptography" and co-winner of the European Union's Descartes Prize. He is an APS Fellow and has authored more than 120 scientific papers. Thomas Chapuran is a senior research scientist at Telcordia. He is co-principal investigator of a project on quantum key distribution in reconfigurable multi-wavelength optical networks. He holds a doctorate in experimental nuclear physics from the University of Illinois and served on the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania. His research includes optical network architectures, broadband access, and signaling and control for next-generation networks. He received Telcordia CEO Awards in 2000 and 2001, and has authored numerous papers in the fields of telecommunications and physics.