The quantum communication polygon enables experiments and demonstrations of quantum key distribution (QKD) and other quantum communication principles in an environment close to real-world deployment.
“More than thirty years ago, experts from our faculty were at the forefront of connecting Czechoslovakia to the Internet. Today, another technological chapter is opening. Quantum technologies have the potential to transform the way we communicate and protect information, and we want to be as active at the birth of this new infrastructure as the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (FEC) of Czech Technical University (CTU) was at the dawn of the Internet in the Czech Republic. It is equally important for us to prepare experts who will develop, operate and use these technologies in practice in the future,” said the Dean of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Petr Páta.
The laboratory’s key role will not only be research and testing of systems, but also the education of a new generation of experts in the field of quantum technologies. The polygon will primarily serve students of the Czech Technical University in Prague, both as part of specialized teaching and lifelong learning. Here, students will be able to practically test the principles of quantum communication and work with technologies that will be part of the critical digital infrastructure in the future.
The quantum polygon at the CTU FEE is designed to become part of the emerging European quantum communication infrastructure in the future. In addition to research, teaching and testing of technologies, it will also serve as an environment for verifying procedures and solutions that can be used in a pan-European secure quantum communication network.
“The future of secure communication and quantum computing is connected to the quantum internet. Today, we are in a similar situation to the classic internet in the early 1990s – technologies are being verified, the first infrastructures are being created and ways are being sought for their practical application. The new polygon allows us to test and demonstrate quantum communication in conditions close to real-world operation and at the same time prepare workplaces for participation in the emerging European quantum communication infrastructure,” described Igor Jex, the guarantor of the quantum technologies program at CTU, who works at the Faculty of Nuclear and Physical Engineering.
Understanding the future
“One of the biggest challenges was to transfer technologies operating in laboratory conditions into an environment that allows for realistic operation and practical experiments. This is how the first internet infrastructures were born – from experimental connections to technologies of everyday life. Quantum communication is at a similar beginning today, and our goal is to create a space where it will be possible not only to research new principles, but also to verify their future use in real networks,” added Leoš Boháč from the Quantum Technologies Studio at CTU.
According to him, it is equally important that students who will one day design and operate similar systems can master everything.
The main difference compared to today's online communication is that classic mass communication transmits data using streams of light pulses or electrons (bits 0 and 1), which can be easily intercepted and copied along the way without anyone noticing.
Quantum communication is so revolutionary in that it entrusts the encoding of information directly to the individual quantum states of light particles (photons), where the inexorable rules of quantum physics apply: any attempt to eavesdrop or measure these states will irreversibly change them and immediately reveal the intruder.
This allows for the creation of absolutely secure encryption keys. Quantum communication polygons, which are being built by universities such as CTU, then serve as key testing laboratories in the real world; they connect academic workplaces with optical cables and allow scientists to tune transmission stability in busy urban traffic, test QKD and develop technology that will one day find mass application in critical state infrastructure, banking or the military.