LANL Research Demonstration of Single-Photon Purity in Infrared Has Utility in QKD for Secure Communication

(LosAlamosReporter) A new class of infrared-emitting quantum dots developed by a team at LANL opens a range of practical applications, including quantum communication, quantum metrology, medical imaging and diagnostics, and clandestine labeling.
“The demonstration of high single-photon purity in the infrared has immediate utility in areas such as quantum key distribution for secure communication,” said Victor Klimov, lead author of a paper published today in Nature Nanotechnology
People can’t see infrared light, but many modern technologies rely on it, from night-vision devices and remote sensing to telecommunications and biomedical imaging. Infrared light is also a big player in emerging quantum technologies that rely on the duality of light particles, or photons, which can also behave as waves. Exploiting this quantum property requires sources of “quantum light” that emit light in the form of individual quanta, or photons.
People can’t see infrared light, but many modern technologies rely on it, from night-vision devices and remote sensing to telecommunications and biomedical imaging. Infrared light is also a big player in emerging quantum technologies that rely on the duality of light particles, or photons, which can also behave as waves. Exploiting this quantum property requires sources of “quantum light” that emit light in the form of individual quanta, or photons.
The synthetic and device part of this work were funded by the Los Alamos Laboratory Directed Research (LDRD) project “Quantum photonics with semiconductor nanocrystals.” Ultrafast spectroscopic studies were funded by the U.S. Department of Energy–Office of Basic Energy Sciences project “Photoinduced dynamics at chemically assembled quantum interfaces” within the Solar Photochemistry Program.