IQUIST-NRIK collaboration to build the first quantum network with open-air links

The National Research Institute of Korea (NRIK) began funding a five-year initiative on August 1 to construct a distributed quantum network connecting nodes separated by 20 kilometers. It will also be the first “hybrid” network connecting nodes using both optical fibers and open-air links to mobile platforms like drones. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign researcher Paul Kwiat will play an integral role in its development.

Kwiat, the Bardeen Professor of Physics and Electrical Engineering and researcher in UIUC’s Illinois Quantum Information Science and Technology Center (IQUIST), has known the principal investigator, Hee Su Park of the Korean Research Institute of Standards and Science (KRISS), since Park was a visiting scientist in his research group 10 years ago. They collaborated on a technique that has led to what is now the world’s most efficient single-photon source.