Jinan-1 refrigerator satellite, in the picture before its launch in 2022. Credit: Y. Lee And others./nature
The researchers divided a remote record in quantum communications by sending a secret encryption key about 13,000 km from China to South Africa, using cheap and lightweight “microsatellite”.
The satellite managed to send pulses from the laser light, which was placed in the states of a special amount, from the surface in Beijing to another at the University of Stellinbush near the Cape Town. The pulses formed a quantitative key used to encrypt two images – one of the Great Wall of China and one shows part of the Stellenbosch campus. This fence, a type of encryption known as the QKD, is a step towards the ability to send super safe messages between any two sites, no matter how far. It was described in nature On March 191.
The quantum network is a step towards the Internet Ultrasecure
Jian Wi -Ban, a quantum physicist at the University of Science and Technology in Haifi, says China, who led the work.
The PAN team also shrinks the terrestrial station reception from 13,000 kg to 100 kg laptop. “We want to improve technology from proving the principle to really practical and useful,” he says. He adds that his team is working with Beijing’s telecommunications company, which is based in Beijing in China Telecom to launch four other microscopic commercial applications in 2026.
“This is another teacher in developing a global QKD network,” says Alexander Ling, a quantum physicist at Singapore National University. The satellite adds “an important step forward” in spreading this type of encryption in the actual time, adds Catania Conv, a physicist quantum and co -founder of QBO Consulting, a company based in Calgary, Canada, other companies to adopt quantum technologies.
The researchers encrypt these two pictures using the quantum key, which they transferred from China to South Africa.Credit: The University of Science and Technology in China
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Physicists believe that future quantum computers will be able to break many types of encryption, but technologies such as QKD provide “a very strong guarantee that the future quantum computer cannot read secret contacts.”
QKD is already used by banks and governments to transfer the keys via optics fiber. But these cables absorb photons, which limits the distance that the signal can travel. Since the light is absorbed at a much lower rate when traveling more than the optical fiber cable, satellites can act as a stage to send secret keys between almost two locations on the planet.
Quantitative encryption depends on the idea that if two parties share a secret key, they can defend a message so that they can only decipher it.
The PAN experience included sending pulses of laser light, each of which is in “overlap”, where it is found in two quantitative cases, representing 1 or 0. By comparing the settings used by the sender with those used by the recipient to measure the impulses, they can work on a selection of 1S or 0 to use as a safe key. If he tries to eavesdrop on the message intercepting, this disturbs quantum states and creates noise, which reveals that the key has endangered.