The article is from the news section of the journal Nature
Eva Schillinger, Nature
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One of the safest quantum encryption methods was used commercially - in at least one banking transaction. On April 21st, Austrian scientists used the method to transfer a donation, worth 3,500 US dollars, to their laboratory.
Quantum encryption relies on the strange properties of quantum particles to generate secure keys for encoding and decoding messages. Just looking at these particles changes them, making it easier to detect eavesdroppers.
Anton Zillinger, a quantum physicist at the University of Vienna, and his team carried out the transaction using an extremely secure encryption method, which uses a pair of entangled photons to create the encryption key.
The properties of each photon depend on the other photon, even if they are separated from each other by a great distance. After the photons are coupled, one is sent to the receiving side. Upon its arrival, both sides check their photons. The test operation determines the state of the photons, and therefore the encryption key.
Before the measurement none of the photons carry useful information that can be stolen. "It makes the transfer of information more secure," says Zillinger.
In last week's experiment, the conjugated photons were produced at the Vienna branch of the Bank of Austria. One was sent to the town hall through a 1450 meter long fiberglass cable. The transfer took 90 seconds, and the money was donated to Zillinger's lab.
There are companies that have been selling devices for quantum encryption for a long time. In their systems, however, the key transfer is accomplished with a single photon. In such systems there is a small possibility that the key will be intercepted without anyone noticing. Zillinger's photon pairs rule out this possible defect, he says.
Creating a commercial prototype for encryption using conjugated photons took two years for Zeilinger's group with the help of the Austrian company ARC Seibersdorf Research. So far, the system has worked well in one trial, but it is not yet ready to enter the market. "We hope that all the problems related to the implementation will be resolved within three years," says Zeilinger.
Translation: Dikla Oren
The article in Nature
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