High-performance detectors to combat spies

A team from the University of Geneva and ID Quantique has developed single-photon detectors with unprecedented performance. These results open new perspectives for quantum cryptography. Using these sensors, scientists were able to generate a secret key at a rate of 64 megabits per second over 10 km of fibre optic cable. M. Perrenoud - G. Resta / UNIGE How can we combat data theft, which is a real issue for society? Quantum physics has the solution. Its theories make it possible to encode information (a qubit) in single particles of light (a photon) and to circulate them in an optical fibre in a highly secure way. However, the widespread use of this telecommunications technology is hampered in particular by the performance of the single-photon detectors. A team from the University of Geneva , together with the company ID Quantique , has succeeded in increasing their speed by a factor of twenty.