International Conference on Space Optics (ICSO)

High performance optical free-space links for quantum communications

Matthias Goy, René Berlich, Andrej Kržič, Daniel Rieländer, Teresa Kopf, Sakshi Sharma, Fabian Steinlechner

Published Jun 11, 2021• 8 citations

Abstract

Secure communication networks are the critical infrastructure of the information age. To ensure secure communication between governmental institutions and other high-security environments, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) initiated an ambitious project { the QuNET initiative. In a joint effort, the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light (MPL), the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and the Fraunhofer Society aim to develop the technological basis of a German quantum key distribution (QKD) infrastructure. This paper describes the infrastructure used in a first link demonstrator within this project and how we achieved the transition from initial quantum transceiver concepts to first link experiments.

DOI: 10.1117/12.2599163

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