OFC/NFOEC is presented by:

ComSoc

Non-financial Technical
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Short Courses

SC266 Quantum Cryptography and Quantum Information

Monday, February 25, 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
Richard Hughes¹, Thomas Chapuran²; ¹Los Alamos Natl. Labs, USA,²Telcordia, USA

Level: Beginner (No background or minimal training is necessary to understand course material)

Course Description
This course will describe the new and rapidly expanding field of Quantum Communications which promises to revolutionize some aspects of communication networks. It will provide a view of an early application of quantum information and quantum communications namely quantum cryptography and why it may be of interest for the OFC community. After a brief motivation as to "what is cryptography" and "What are the limitations with conventional cryptography", the course will provide a high-level view of quantum cryptography and quantum key distribution. The course will provide a brief history of quantum cryptography from its inception to the present time and will walk through detailed examples of how the BB-84 QKD protocol works. The course will then turn to the realities of real-world light sources and photon detectors. The course will include both fiber and free space environments, and will identify and summarize some of the major efforts worldwide in this area. Finally the course will introduce the EPR paradox and quantum entanglement and teleportation, and will briefly describe how the single Qubit systems used in QKD set the stage for multi-qubit quantum information systems for the future.

Benefits and Learning Objectives
This course should enable you to:

Intended Audience
The audience may include optical networking and optoelectronic technology researchers with an interest in quantum communications, managers of research groups and engineers who want a glimpse of a new and forward looking technology. An undergraduate-level understanding of quantum mechanics is helpful.

Instructor Biographies:
Richard J. Hughes is a Laboratory Fellow in the physics division at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. He is co-principal investigator of projects in both free-space and optical fiber based quantum key distribution and holds two U.S. patents in these areas. He obtained his doctorate in Theoretical Elementary Particle Physics from the University of Liverpool and has held research positions at Oxford University and the Queens College Oxford; The California Institute of Technology; and CERN, Geneva.  He has held distinguished visiting scientist positions at Oxford University (Dr. Lee Fellow, Christ Church, 1994) and at the University of Oslo (1993). His awards include the Los Alamos Distinguished Performance Award, the Los Alamos Fellow's Prize, co-winner of a research and development 100 Award for "Free Space Quantum Cryptography" and co-winner of the European Union's Descartes Prize. He became a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1999. He chairs the Advanced Research and Development Activity's Quantum Information Science and Technology Roadmap project. He has authored more than 120 scientific papers on quantum field theory, the foundations of quantum mechanics, quantum cryptography and quantum computation.

Thomas Chapuran is a senior research scientist at Telcordia. He is co-principal investigator of a project on quantum key distribution in reconfigurable multi-wavelength optical networks. He holds a Ph.D. in Experimental Nuclear Physics from the University of Illinois, and served on the physics faculty at the University of Pennsylvania before joining Telcordia (Bellcore) in 1988. His research has included optical network architectures, broadband access, and signaling and control for next-generation networks. He received Telcordia CEO Awards in 2000 and 2001, and has authored numerous papers in the fields of telecommunications and physics.