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Research Highlights
- Publish Date：2025-02-04
NYCU and Global Teams Achieve Breakthrough in Quantum Communication, Strengthening Cybersecurity
(Photo credit: Getty Images)
Edited by Chance Lai
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The digital era has brought unprecedented convenience but has also introduced new cybersecurity challenges. Quantum communication, with its unique physical properties, offers a crucial solution for secure data transmission in the future. In collaboration with top domestic and international teams, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University (NYCU) researchers have made a significant breakthrough in quantum key distribution (QKD) technology, enhancing communication stability and resistance to interference.
Their findings, published in the international journal APL Photonics, lay a solid foundation for cybersecurity protection. This breakthrough accelerates the practical application of quantum encryption and paves the way for advancements in network security, financial transactions, and national defense.
Their findings, published in the international journal APL Photonics, lay a solid foundation for cybersecurity protection. This breakthrough accelerates the practical application of quantum encryption and paves the way for advancements in network security, financial transactions, and national defense.
Advancing Quantum Communication Stability for Secure Encryption
A research team led by Dr. Hao-Chung Kuo, Director of the Semiconductor Research Center at Hon Hai Research Institute (HHRI) and Chair Professor at NYCU, has achieved a significant breakthrough in QKD technology.
Partnering with NYCU, National Taiwan University (NTU), and Japan’s National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), the team developed an innovative asynchronous bit-rate encoding and decoding technique, which significantly enhances quantum key stability and interference resistance while reducing the error rate. This breakthrough sets the stage for the next generation of quantum encryption applications.
By employing asynchronous encoding and decoding techniques, the team successfully minimized optical path discrepancies in the delay-line interferometer (DLI), expanding the free spectral range (FSR) and dramatically improving the system’s resilience to thermal disturbances. Experimental results demonstrated that extending the FSR to 1 GHz reduced the quantum bit error rate (QBER) to 2.2% while increasing the secure key rate (SKR) to 77.32 kbps—marking a significant leap toward stable quantum communication.
Partnering with NYCU, National Taiwan University (NTU), and Japan’s National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), the team developed an innovative asynchronous bit-rate encoding and decoding technique, which significantly enhances quantum key stability and interference resistance while reducing the error rate. This breakthrough sets the stage for the next generation of quantum encryption applications.
By employing asynchronous encoding and decoding techniques, the team successfully minimized optical path discrepancies in the delay-line interferometer (DLI), expanding the free spectral range (FSR) and dramatically improving the system’s resilience to thermal disturbances. Experimental results demonstrated that extending the FSR to 1 GHz reduced the quantum bit error rate (QBER) to 2.2% while increasing the secure key rate (SKR) to 77.32 kbps—marking a significant leap toward stable quantum communication.
Additionally, the team adopted high-stability distributed feedback laser diodes (DFBLDs) as the light source, controlling wavelength fluctuations within ±0.05 pm. This advancement significantly reduced long-term decoding errors and improved overall system stability.
Compared to conventional synchronous techniques, this asynchronous DPS-QKD technology greatly enhances interference resistance, reduces reliance on high-precision temperature and current control equipment, lowers operational costs, and offers a more flexible solution for real-world quantum communication applications.
Ushering in the Era of Quantum Security with Expansive Applications
This breakthrough paves the way for the practical implementation of QKD in network security, finance, and military applications, bringing quantum communication technology closer to real-world adoption. The research team emphasized that they will continue refining decoding algorithms and expanding large-scale quantum communication system deployments, accelerating the development of next-generation secure communication networks.
The decoding performance of the asynchronous-bit-rate DPS QKD streams when using different fiberized DLIs with the corresponding FSRs of 40, 192 MHz, and 1 GHz. (a) QBER and (b) SKR obtained at DLI’s visibility of 91.76%; (c) QBER and (d) SKR obtained at DLI’s visibility of maximum (∼96%); (e) the simulated visibility vs temperature fluctuation; and (f) the zoom-in plots showing the slope of the visibility vs temperature gradient suppressed with increasing FSR.Related Image(s)：
