High-Speed Communication Vouchsafed by the Laws of Quantum Physics

Security in encrypted communication is a top priority because of our highly connected and mobile society’s increasing reliance on the internet. Engineers at Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and the Research Laboratory of Electronics, MIT, have developed a new protocol for high-speed communication between two parties with security vouchsafed by the laws of quantum physics. The protocol can also be used to distribute cryptographic keys, as in quantum key distribution (QKD) at much higher secure key rates than existing QKD methods.