Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

Physics World

Patents, patience and quantum ideas

Paul K. Guinnessy

Published May 1, 1999• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Quantum information is one of the hottest research topics in physics today. Theorists and experimenters across the globe are devising new ways to exploit the quantum properties of light and matter in novel forms of computation and communication. Although a real quantum computer is still decades away, so-called quantum cryptography has already been demonstrated across commercial optical-fibre networks and is very close to real-world applications.

DOI
10.1088/2058-7058/12/5/17

Related papers

Quantum Information Processing

David Peter Divincenzo

Quantum Information Science is a cross-disciplinary subject that has arisen in the last twenty years. It concerns itself with the consequences of our most complete description of the physical world (that is, quantum mechanics) for the reliable, secure, private, and rapid processing of information, both in communication and computation. While its invention is often ascribed to the famous theoretical physicist Richard Feynman in the 1980s, his contributions were only one of many that initiated the field around that time. While he perceived that new types of physical devices, in which the quantum laws of superposition and entanglement function at the logical level, could give new power in the simulation of quantum physics, it was others (Bennett, Brassard) who showed that the uncertainty principle led to fundamentally more secure ways of communicating secret messages. It was yet others (Deutsch, Vazirani) who understood that quantum theory defined a new kind of Turing machine, and that not only quantum physics simulations, but potentially many other computational problems, are sped up in this machine. And it was yet another (Shor) who found a simple, very fast algorithm for prime factorization. The word "qubit" was coined only in 1995. Its introduction is indicative of a new mindset that has developed in recent years for studying and using quantum systems. "Qubit" now stands for a durable paradigm that spans a very wide variety of fields. It thus has many sub-meanings: first, it is the basic abstract unit of information for workers ranging from optical communication engineers to NMR spectroscopists to black-hole theorists. Second, it is the name we now routinely give to physical two level systems, as they are realized by photons, atomic and ionic eigenlevels, electronic and nuclear spin, structural defects in solids, and circulating-current states of superconducting devices. Physics has long dealt with some of these two-level systems, but calling them qubits implies a whole suite of interrelated ideas and capabilities that we ascribe to these systems: the ability to precisely set, and to precisely measure, the quantum state of one unique specimen, to avoid its coupling with the environment while at the same time strongly and controllably coupling the qubits together, to exploit the resulting quantum entanglement as a resource for metrological, cryptographic, and computational tasks. Quantum Information is a very diverse subject pursued today in many different directions, by many hundreds of researchers internationally: In theoretical physics, it has enlivened and sharpened the understanding of efficient representations of entangled many-particle wavefunctions, and has provided the prospect of applications for new concepts such as anyons and majorana fermions. Information theorists has benefitted from having a rigorous extension of the basis of their field, in which classical information theory is subsumed into a greatly broader subject. Theoretical computer scientists continue the search for new quantum algorithms, and have used quantum concepts to prove new results about the classification of computational complexity. Coding theorists have had the new and subtle problem of quantum error correction to analyse and conquer. Most strikingly, the program of experimental physics has been influenced in many directions by Quantum Information Science. State-of-the-art optics experiments transmit quantum states over long distances and perform precision manipulations in single quanta (atomic ions, impurity spins, quantum dots) in the quest to have working quantum cyptography and quantum computing. Quantum Hall systems, and topological insulators, are being assiduously examined for new elementary excitations for use as qubits. In the course of ten years, superconducting devices have improved by over four orders of magnitude in their quantum coherence, a metric made precise by the ideas of quantum computing. [...] DiVincenzo, David

WORLD SCIENTIFIC (EUROPE) eBooks•May 5, 2026•0 citations

Cryptographic protection of information using quantum cryptography

Дінмұхамед Әбділдаұлы Түлкібай

In the modern world, one of the most reliable ways to keep all types of communications or information transmitted over computer networks secret is the use of quantum cryptography. The idea of ​​using quantum cryptography to protect information by exploiting the nature of microscopic objects—quantum light (photons), whose behavior is subject only to the laws of physics—has become the most relevant and reliable application. Despite the fact that commercially available quantum cryptography devices are already available, scientific advances in this field are still underway.

True Masters Innovations•Feb 19, 2026•0 citations

Quantum communication moves into the unknown

David Deutsch, ARTUR K. EKERT

Information is physical and any processing of information is always performed by physical means – an innocent-sounding statement, but its consequences are anything but trivial. In the last few years there has been an explosion of theoretical and experimental innovations which, their discoverers claim, are creating a fundamental new discipline: a distinctively quantum theory of information.

Physics World•Jun 1, 1993•5 citations

A new horizon for quantum information

Michelle Yvonne Simmons

Since 2000, several landmark results in quantum information have catapulted the field to one of the most exciting in science. From the demonstration of Shor’s factorisation algorithm that threatens the long-term security of public-key cryptography, to the teleportation of super-position states, the demonstration of error-correcting codes and the development of topologically protected qubits, our ability to control the quantum world is ever increasing. Matched by elegant experiments to test the fundamentals of quantum physics, such as the recent demonstration of the loop-hole free violation of Bell's inequality, 1 , 2 these exciting achievements are all emerging just at the time when information technology is beginning to enter the quantum regime.

npj Quantum Information•Oct 26, 2015•2 citations

The Longer Term: Quantum Information Processing and Communication

Philippe Jorrand

Information is physical. Today’s information processing and communication are classical: they are based upon the laws of Newton’s and Maxwell’s classical physics. This assertion holds all the way, from commercial computers and networks, up to their most abstract models, e.g. Turing machines. Research in quantum information was born some twenty five years ago, with the encounter of two major scientific achievements of the 20th century, namely quantum physics and information sciences. A technological motivation for that is an extrapolation of Moore’s law which seems to indicate that the amount of matter needed for one bit will be reduced to one particle sometimes before year 2020. A deeper, scientific driving force of this interdisciplinary research is that of looking for the consequences of having computation and communication based directly upon the laws of quantum physics, i.e. our current ultimate knowledge of the world of elementary particles, as described by quantum mechanics. Breakthroughs in cryptography, communications, information theory and algorithmics have shown that this transplantation from classical to quantum has far reaching consequences, both quantitative and qualitative, and opens new avenues for research within the foundations of computer science and physics. The principles 388 and most striking results and hot topics of this promising way of encoding, processing and communicating information are briefly introduced in this chapter from a mostly computer science point of view, with detailed examples in algorithmics and in cryptography. At the end of the chapter, a short list of some significant articles, textbooks and reports on quantum information are suggested for further reading.

•May 8, 2019•0 citations

Quantum cryptography

Wolfgang Tittel, G. Ribordy, Nicolas Gisin

We live in a quantum world – something that physicists have considered with amazement for more than seventy years. But we now realize that quantum physics is more than a radical departure from classical physics, It also offers many new possibilities for information processing.

Physics World•Mar 1, 1998•52 citations
Quantum information is one of the hottest research topics in physics today. Theorists and experimenters across the globe are devising new ways to exploit the quantum properties of light and matter in novel forms of computation and communication. Although a real quantum computer is still decades away, so-called quantum cryptography has already been demonstrated across commercial optical-fibre networks and is very close to real-world applications.
Quantum Information Science is a cross-disciplinary subject that has arisen in the last twenty years. It concerns itself with the consequences of our most complete description of the physical world (that is, quantum mechanics) for the reliable, secure, private, and rapid processing of information, both in communication and computation. While its invention is often ascribed to the famous theoretical physicist Richard Feynman in the 1980s, his contributions were only one of many that initiated the field around that time. While he perceived that new types of physical devices, in which the quantum laws of superposition and entanglement function at the logical level, could give new power in the simulation of quantum physics, it was others (Bennett, Brassard) who showed that the uncertainty principle led to fundamentally more secure ways of communicating secret messages. It was yet others (Deutsch, Vazirani) who understood that quantum theory defined a new kind of Turing machine, and that not only quantum physics simulations, but potentially many other computational problems, are sped up in this machine. And it was yet another (Shor) who found a simple, very fast algorithm for prime factorization. The word "qubit" was coined only in 1995. Its introduction is indicative of a new mindset that has developed in recent years for studying and using quantum systems. "Qubit" now stands for a durable paradigm that spans a very wide variety of fields. It thus has many sub-meanings: first, it is the basic abstract unit of information for workers ranging from optical communication engineers to NMR spectroscopists to black-hole theorists. Second, it is the name we now routinely give to physical two level systems, as they are realized by photons, atomic and ionic eigenlevels, electronic and nuclear spin, structural defects in solids, and circulating-current states of superconducting devices. Physics has long dealt with some of these two-level systems, but calling them qubits implies a whole suite of interrelated ideas and capabilities that we ascribe to these systems: the ability to precisely set, and to precisely measure, the quantum state of one unique specimen, to avoid its coupling with the environment while at the same time strongly and controllably coupling the qubits together, to exploit the resulting quantum entanglement as a resource for metrological, cryptographic, and computational tasks. Quantum Information is a very diverse subject pursued today in many different directions, by many hundreds of researchers internationally: In theoretical physics, it has enlivened and sharpened the understanding of efficient representations of entangled many-particle wavefunctions, and has provided the prospect of applications for new concepts such as anyons and majorana fermions. Information theorists has benefitted from having a rigorous extension of the basis of their field, in which classical information theory is subsumed into a greatly broader subject. Theoretical computer scientists continue the search for new quantum algorithms, and have used quantum concepts to prove new results about the classification of computational complexity. Coding theorists have had the new and subtle problem of quantum error correction to analyse and conquer. Most strikingly, the program of experimental physics has been influenced in many directions by Quantum Information Science. State-of-the-art optics experiments transmit quantum states over long distances and perform precision manipulations in single quanta (atomic ions, impurity spins, quantum dots) in the quest to have working quantum cyptography and quantum computing. Quantum Hall systems, and topological insulators, are being assiduously examined for new elementary excitations for use as qubits. In the course of ten years, superconducting devices have improved by over four orders of magnitude in their quantum coherence, a metric made precise by the ideas of quantum computing. [...] DiVincenzo, David
In the modern world, one of the most reliable ways to keep all types of communications or information transmitted over computer networks secret is the use of quantum cryptography. The idea of ​​using quantum cryptography to protect information by exploiting the nature of microscopic objects—quantum light (photons), whose behavior is subject only to the laws of physics—has become the most relevant and reliable application. Despite the fact that commercially available quantum cryptography devices are already available, scientific advances in this field are still underway.
Since 2000, several landmark results in quantum information have catapulted the field to one of the most exciting in science. From the demonstration of Shor’s factorisation algorithm that threatens the long-term security of public-key cryptography, to the teleportation of super-position states, the demonstration of error-correcting codes and the development of topologically protected qubits, our ability to control the quantum world is ever increasing. Matched by elegant experiments to test the fundamentals of quantum physics, such as the recent demonstration of the loop-hole free violation of Bell's inequality, 1 , 2 these exciting achievements are all emerging just at the time when information technology is beginning to enter the quantum regime.
Information is physical. Today’s information processing and communication are classical: they are based upon the laws of Newton’s and Maxwell’s classical physics. This assertion holds all the way, from commercial computers and networks, up to their most abstract models, e.g. Turing machines. Research in quantum information was born some twenty five years ago, with the encounter of two major scientific achievements of the 20th century, namely quantum physics and information sciences. A technological motivation for that is an extrapolation of Moore’s law which seems to indicate that the amount of matter needed for one bit will be reduced to one particle sometimes before year 2020. A deeper, scientific driving force of this interdisciplinary research is that of looking for the consequences of having computation and communication based directly upon the laws of quantum physics, i.e. our current ultimate knowledge of the world of elementary particles, as described by quantum mechanics. Breakthroughs in cryptography, communications, information theory and algorithmics have shown that this transplantation from classical to quantum has far reaching consequences, both quantitative and qualitative, and opens new avenues for research within the foundations of computer science and physics. The principles 388 and most striking results and hot topics of this promising way of encoding, processing and communicating information are briefly introduced in this chapter from a mostly computer science point of view, with detailed examples in algorithmics and in cryptography. At the end of the chapter, a short list of some significant articles, textbooks and reports on quantum information are suggested for further reading.