News

UNIQORN at INFOCOM World 2019

Our partner COSMOTE presented the UNIQORN project in the INFOCOM World Conference took place in Athens, Greece on the 26th of November 2019.

This year’s InfoCom World, was focused on suggestions, implementations and plans, for the development of the Smart Home industry, as well as challenges, opportunities and prospects.

During the “Prospects and Challenges for Developing Innovative Applications and 5G Services” workshop the UNIQORN representatives had the chance to discuss and exchange ideas with many other interesting projects in the field.

You can download the UNIQORN presentation.

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We were at ECOC 2019!

…some impressions from our journey to the ECOC 2019 conference in Dublin, Ireland. Hannes Hübel from AIT Austrian Institute of Technology delivered a talk on our mission to squeeze quantum labs onto chips in course of the Hybrid PIC Workshop, which gave us the opportunity to fruitfully elaborate with other integration platforms on possible joint activity. With respect to the other end of the food chain of quantum technology, George Kanellos from University of Bristol enriched the Symposium on Optical Interconnects in Datacenters, where he gave insight in the extensive and well-furnished optical network test-bed in Bristol, which is already integrating quantum links in co-existence with classical data traffic. On the vivid exhibition floor, VPIphotonics showcased a simulation toolkit for continuous-variable signal transmission. Other UNIQORN partners attended the conference and the exhibition as well!

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Ein Einhorn für Zuhause

“Es ist wahrscheinlich eines der kleinteiligsten Labors weltweit. Die Zahl der Dinge, die auf Schreibtischen, Werkbänken, in Regalen und Schubladen liegen, muss in die Millionen gehen. Kein Wunder, dass Hannes Hübel, der Leiter des Labors, den einen Chip, um den sich hier mehr oder weniger alles dreht, spontan nicht finden kann, obwohl hier offensichtlich alles an dem Platz ist, an den es gehört. “Weiß jemand, wo der Chip ist?”, fragt Hübel in die Runde.” …

Hier klicken, um den ganzen Artikel der Wiener Zeitzng Digitale Republic zu lesen!

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Workshop on Hybrid PICs at ECOC 2019 in Dublin

Date: Sunday, September 22nd from 2pm to 5:30pm
Place: Dublin, Ireland

“Hybrid Photonic Integrated Circuits (Hybrid PICs) are complex and cost-effective at the same time. This half-day workshop will cover all topics of Hybrid PICs from materials to integration technologies, enabling platforms and modelling tools towards their use in different fields of applications such as communications, quantum technologies, analytics, and sensing.”

Agenda download

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Quantum Research and Technology Event

Place: Haus der Forschung, Wien
Date: 28 Juni 2019
Organizer: FFG & FWF

“FFG together with the FWF are organising an event for the national call for proposals on the Quantum Research and Technology 2019 topic. Information on the call for tenders and other international funding opportunities in the field of quantum research and technology will be presented. Furthermore, presentations on the already funded projects under the topic of quantum research and technology will take place.”

Our project coordinator will give a keynote speech on “Integration von Quanten Systemen auf photonischen Chips für Quanten-Kommunikations Anwendungen”.

The workshop will be held in German.

More information: https://www.ffg.at/veranstaltungen/qfte-2019

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EU countries plan ultra-secure communication network

“At the Digital Assembly 2019 in Bucharest, Romania, representatives of 7 EU countries (Belgium, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, and Spain) signed a declaration agreeing to explore together, over the next 12 months, how to develop and deploy a quantum communication infrastructure (QCI) across the EU within the next ten years. This infrastructure would enable information and data to be transmitted and stored ultra-securely, and link communication assets all over the EU. It would integrate quantum technologies and systems into conventional communication infrastructures, and consist of two elements: an earth-based component making use of existing fibre communication networks linking strategic sites at national and cross-border level, and a space-based component to cover long distances across the EU and other continents.”

Our project heartily supports the declaration and will contribute to the defined goals. The trans-disciplinary approach of UNIQORN brings together leading European players from quantum optics and photonics enabling to move from lab demonstration to field deployment and bridge the quantum divide between large (governmental) and small (residential) end-users.

Source: Digital Single Market

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A strong UNIQORN presence at ICTON 2019

21st International Conference on Transparent Optical Networks
ICTON 2019
Place: Angers, France
Date: July 9 -13, 2019

The UNIQORN partners will present recent project results at ICTON 2019 during the following dedicated talks!

Flexible entanglement distribution based on WDM and active switching technology

Session: QC I Wednesday, July 10, 9:10-10:50

Authors
Hannes Hübel, Bernhard Schrenk, Sophie Zeiger, Fabian Laudenbach and Michael Hentschel  (AIT Austrian institute of Technology)

Abstract
In future, the distribution of single or entangled photons inside optical networks will be a prerequisite for a general roll-out and adoption of quantum communication technologies. In particular, on-demand routing and active wavelength allocation will be needed to meet the demand of complex network architectures. In the last years several attempts have been made, based either on passive optical WDM technology or active switching of channels. Here we present a novel approach whereby we combine spectral slicing of the emission spectrum of SPDC sources together with space-switches to generate a reconfigurable distribution node for entanglement.  The increased switching complexity offered by our hybrid solution allows us to realise quantum ROADMs with up to three degrees.

Modelling Weak-Coherent CV-QKD Systems Using a Classical Simulation Framework

Session: QC III Wednesday, July 10, 14:20-16:20

Authors
Sören Kreinberg(1), Igor Koltchanov(1), Piotr Novik(2), Saleem Alreesh(1), Fabian Laudenbach(3), Christoph Pacher(3), Hannes Hübel(3), André Richter(1)

Affiliations
(1) VPIphotonics GmbH, Carnotstr. 6, 10587 Berlin, Germany
(2) VPI Development Center, ul. Filimonova 15-50831, 220037 Minsk, Belarus
(3) Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH, Donau-City-Str. 1, 1220 Vienna, Austria

Abstract
Due to their compatibility to existing telecom technology, continuous variable (CV) weak coherent state protocols are promising candidates for a broad deployment of quantum key distribution (QKD) technology. We demonstrate how an existing simulation framework for modelling classical optical systems can be utilized for simulations of weak-coherent CV-QKD links. The quantum uncertainties for the measured characteristics of coherent signals are modelled in the electrical domain by shot noise, while a coherent signal in the optical domain is described by its quadrature components. We simulate various degradation effects such as attenuation, laser RIN, Raman noise (from classical channels in the same fibre), and device imperfections and compare the outcome with analytical theory. Having complemented the physical simulation layer by the post-processing layer (reconciliation and privacy amplification), we are able to estimate secure key rates from simulations, greatly boosting the development speed of practical CV-QKD schemes and implementations.

Coexistence of discrete-variable QKD with WDM classical signals in the C-band for fiber access environments

Session: QC V Thursday, July 11, 8:30-10:10

Authors
D. Zavitsanos (1), G. Giannoulis (1), A. Raptakis (1), C. Papananos (1), F. Setaki (2), E. Theodoropoulou (2), G. Lyberopoulos (2), Ch. Kouloumentas (1), (3), and H. Avramopoulos (1)

Affiliations
(1) National Technical University of Athens, Greece
(2) COSMOTE Kinites Tilepikoinonies A.E., Athens, Greece
(3) Optagon Photonics, Athens, Greece

Abstract
In this paper, a coexistence scheme between a Discrete-Variable Quantum Key Distribution (DV-QKD) and four bidirectional classical channels in a Passive Optical Network (PON) topology is theoretically investigated. The study aims to explore the imposed limitations considering the coexistence of weak quantum channels with realistic traffic flows of classical streams through shared fiber infrastructures. Based on a ‘plug and play’ phase coding DV-QKD implementation, we conducted numerical simulations of the QBER and the secure key rate for fiber distances up to 10km. The reported results suggest that in a fixed C-band grid, the spectral isolation between classical and quantum channels is essential at dense grids. By removing the leakage noise through stronger spectral isolation, the photons linked with the Raman scattering becomes the dominant noise source, since this mechanism covers an ultra-broadband window and gets stronger as the propagation distance increases.

Official ICTON 2019 website:http://www.icton2019.com/

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2nd UNIQORN General Assembly

On May 21 – 22, 2019 we organised the 2nd general assembly of our project in Vienna, Austria!

The main topics discussed were the technical work plan, the communication and dissemination strategy and the project contributions to the Quatum Flaghsip! In addition to the plenary sessions, parallel technical sessions about the use cases  e-Health, e-Government and Smart City, and the different work packages were organised.

Actions, next steps and goals for the near future have been defined!

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European Quantum Community Meeting 2019

Date: October 17 – 18, 2019

Place: Helsinki, Finland

Join the Finnish Presidency–Quantum Flagship event that will take place in October in Helsinki.  The two day event will be dedicated to the Quantum Technology community, the Quantum Flagship as well as setting the Strategic Research Agenda, which will be presented and discussed among the community attending the event.  The program is currently being finalised and will be published very soon.

Source: https://qt.eu/newsroom/save-the-date-exploring-and-making-quantum-technology/

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