Qunnect, one of the most talked about start-ups in the quantum networking space, is celebrating World Quantum Day with the unveiling of its newly-built 4000-square-foot R&D facility and a 1500-square-foot Network Research Hub for the company’s GothamQ New York City quantum network testbed. The facilities are located in the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
The company also announced the commercial launch of QU-SOURCE, its atomic entanglement source, which Qunnect described as “the only entanglement source on the market that produces exceptionally pure polarization photon pairs that are readily compatible with telecom fiber and atomic-based quantum devices.”
Qunnect’s QU-SOURCE elements are installed on the GothamQ network where the company is performing pilots on 34-km loops traversing the NYC boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens. These products are supported by the QU-APC, another product recently launched by Qunnect that corrects for damaging fluctuations in the fiber channels caused by environmental perturbations, a capability which helps the GothamQ Network leverage existing telecom fiber network infrastructure.
“We are introducing a source capable of generating more than ten million pairs of high fidelity polarization entangled photons with sub-GHz linewidth, high heralding efficiency and bichromatic wavelength to be compatible with telecom fibers and atomic devices,” explains Co-Founder and CSO Mehdi Namazi. “Additionally, by leveraging GothamQ, we proved the practicality of distributing these entangled photons over 34km of New York City deployed fibers, while maintaining high rate, high entanglement fidelity, and very high, uninterrupted network uptime.”
Namazi is scheduled to speak at the IQT Canada 2023 event this June.
Qunnect CEO Noel Goddard said the GothamQ network “will not only host new forms of secure communication, but it will also support other quantum devices, including computers and sensors. This collection of capabilities will serve as the foundation for the Quantum Internet.”
Qunnect late last fall raised funding from Airbus Ventures, SandboxAQ, and others. The company also made news in November 2021 for what it claimed then was the first quantum memory sale to Brookhaven National Laboratory. Almost a year ago, in May 2022, Qunnect received a $1.85 million award from the U.S. Department of Energy for quantum repeater technology.
Dan O’Shea has covered telecommunications and related topics including semiconductors, sensors, retail systems, digital payments and quantum computing/technology for over 25 years.