QuNET General Meeting 2022
The QuNET initiative is a pilot project of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) for research into highly secure quantum communication. On Tuesday, 15 November, the partners invite you to the virtual general meeting. The afternoon programme is open to the public and is therefore open to all interested participants.
With its public programme section, the QuNET General Assembly aims to give all interested parties the opportunity to learn more about the partners and goals of the QuNET project. The work of the initiative is also highly interdisciplinary. As a result, new research questions are constantly being identified during the course of the project and integrated into the further course of the initiative. As a result, so-called QuNET+ projects have already been established, which transfer the research results into application under the leadership of an industrial partner. As individual consortia, they complement the central research work of the QuNET partners in the field of tap-proof quantum communication. The General Assembly gives participants the opportunity to familiarise themselves with these QuNET+ projects in detail.
The General Assembly will take place online via MS Teams. Participation is free of charge. The event language is German.
Nobel Prize for quantum research
It was a special moment for an entire research community: quantum researchers Alain Aspect, John F. Clauser and Anton Zeilinger were awarded the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm honoured a field of research that is becoming increasingly important.
The work of the prizewinners, especially Anton Zeilinger, has also inspired researchers at the Fraunhofer IOF. For example, they provided insights for the development of an entangled photon source and the application of quantum entanglement for quantum communication and quantum imaging.
Quantum communication is also at the centre of the QuNET project, a pilot project funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) for research into tap-proof communication. Furthermore, the “InteQuant” project, which is being carried out in cooperation with the Institute of Quantum Optics and Quantum Information IQOQI, is working on the development of innovative hardware for quantum communication.
We would like to express our deepest appreciation to the award winners for their ground-breaking work and thank them for the important contribution they have made to quantum research to date.
Participation in the Federal Government Open Day 2022
Numerous visitors took part in the Federal Government’s Open Day on 20 and 21 August 2022 in Berlin. In addition to the opportunity to take a tour of the building, various projects funded by the BMBF were exhibited. In this context, QuNET presented the topic of quantum key distribution over long distances using satellites. A laboratory model of a satellite transmission unit (laser terminal, original size) for quantum key distribution and the model of a possible ground station for receiving the quantum signal were shown. The entire transmission scenario was presented and technically explained at the stand.
The QuNET initiative stand was visited by Minister Stark-Watzinger on Saturday, the day of the opening. On the following Sunday, State Secretary Judith Pirscher visited the exhibitions. The topic of quantum key distribution met with great interest. Visitors included families, schoolchildren, students and other interested parties. During the open day, there were numerous discussions and a varied exchange of ideas.
First successful exchange of quantum keys between Erfurt and Jena via optical fibre
With eleven million euros, the Thuringian Ministry of Science has supported the development of an infrastructure for quantum communication networks in the Free State. This also includes a fiber-based test track between Jena and Erfurt. Now, partners of the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Optics and Precision Mechanics IOF have successfully exchanged quantum keys for the first time on the 75 km track.
The full press release is available at this link.
First version of the QKD ecosystem map for Germany
The first version of the QKD ecosystem map has been released. An overview of all QKD partners in Germany can be found here. To download the complete overview, click on this link. The map is updated once a year to keep the overview of the German QKD landscape up-to-date and accessible.
In order to establish contact with the QKD contact persons in the listed companies and institutions, the QuNET-Office (qunet-office-iof.fraunhofer.de) can be contacted.
Review of 2021, goals for 2022 and new workshop dates
The QuNET initiative, which has been funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research BMBF since 2019, looks back on a successful year in 2021: a first QKD-secure video conference in an official environment was demonstrated between the BSI and the BMBF in Bonn.
The four core institutes of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft FhG-HHI & IOF, the German Aerospace Center DLR-IKN and the Max Planck-Gesellschaft MPG-MPL and, since 2022, other partners from industry and science are continuing to research the physical and technical foundations of quantum key distribution (QKD). The aim is to create greater security and technological sovereignty, especially in official communication application scenarios.
Important for the success of the initiative is to further expand the economic and scientific ecosystem of quantum secure, application-oriented communication using QKD and to attract suitable partners for this purpose. Following the first QuNET partner workshop in April 2021, first so-called QuNET+ projects were launched with the support of the BMBF. These are useful in order to make QKD usable in particular for use in an official context.
In 2022, QuNET+ projects will be launched in an intensified and focused manner in order to exploit the full potential of the German industrial and scientific landscape and to make important contributions to the implementation of the QuNET initiative in synergy with the work of the core institutes.