2023 Impact factor 2.6
Special Topics

EPJ QT Highlight - Generating true randomness with quantum measurements

alt
Inherent randomness in photon detection times

A new approach can generate random information with extremely high efficiency through a process involving the emission and subsequent detection of single photons

From simulation to cryptography, randomness is a vital resource in many areas of technology. Ideally, random sequences can be created by measuring nondeterministic processes, whose outcomes are inherently unpredictable. Currently, many systems rely on pseudorandom processes such as thermal noise or chaotic oscillation, which exhibit some unpredictability, but are still fundamentally deterministic.

Through new research published in EPJ Quantum Technology, Jonas Almlöf and colleagues at Ericsson Research and the KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden, show how these challenges can be overcome by exploiting the inherently random principles of quantum mechanics.

Their approach offers a realistic route to generating completely unbiased random sequences of information, and also enables far greater efficiency compared to existing methods.

Read more...

EPJ QT Highlight - Access to burgeoning quantum technology field could be widened by open master educational model

alt
The operation of the Open Master pilot scheme. Credit: S. Goorney, et al., EPJ Quantum Technology, (2024)

Quantum technology offers major societal benefits, but its growth depends on the supply of a qualified workforce.

Quantum Technology is based on the engineering of devices that make use of the quantum properties of matter. One of the most prominent avenues of this technology is quantum computing, which may be able to leverage quantum bits (qubits) to perform calculations more efficiently than classical computers. Technology with this “quantum advantage” will also operate in the background of our lives, providing ultra-secure communications and high-precision sensors and clocks.

The applications of quantum technology have led to a boom in investment worldwide; with this technology expected to have a huge societal impact. But to maintain this burgeoning industry, it is crucial that graduates with training in quantum technology enter the workforce. Plus, for the European Union to stay ahead in the quantum tech race, the workforce must assemble on a much shorter timescale than the 3 to 5 years (or more) of a PhD program.

In a new paper in EPJ Quantum Technology, author Simon Goorney, from Aarhus University, Denmark, and his co-authors describe the development of Open Master, a new form of transnational education, that could serve as a means of enhancing accessibility to specialist expertise in quantum technology. The ultimate goal of the pilot scheme, which operated over the academic year of 2021 to 2022, was to use the experience to conceptualise a model for the future of quantum technology education.

Read more...

EPJ Quantum Technology: New Review Article The Deep Space Quantum Link (DSQL)

alt
A new review lays out a roadmap for quantum technologies. Credit: Robert Lea

Space-based quantum optical links support future networking applications for quantum sensing, quantum communications, and quantum information science. In addition, such links enable new scientific experiments impossible to reach in terrestrial experiments. The Deep Space Quantum Link (DSQL) is a spacecraft mission concept that aims to use extremely long-baseline quantum optical links to test fundamental quantum physics in novel special and general relativistic regimes.

In a new Review article just published in EPJ Quantum Technology, an international author team provide an overview of a two-year long study of how quantum optics in space could be used to conduct new tests of fundamental physics, in compliment to proposed tests utilizing matter or clocks. The manuscript describes the findings of the NASA-funded study, and describes some of the technology requirements and outstanding mission design studies necessary to move forward with the mission.

Read more...

Managing Editors
Sandrine Karpe and Vijala Kiruvanayagam (EDP Sciences) and Sabine Lehr (Springer-Verlag)
Dear Isabelle, dear Ms. Lehr,
We want to express our sincere thanks to you for your outstanding work perfectly in time.

Kerstin Eckert, TU Dresden, Germany
on behalf of the other Editors EPJ Special Topics 220, 2013

ISSN: 1951-6355 (Print Edition)
ISSN: 1951-6401 (Electronic Edition)

© EDP Sciences and Springer-Verlag