This week, the first meeting of Institute of Physics SAS and Faculty of Materials Science and Technology in Trnava (Slovak University of Technology) representatives took place in Trnava with the aim to coordinate the first deployment outside Bratislava area of the secured national quantum communication infrastructure. Vice-dean prof. Pavol Tanuška expressed the maximum possible support for developing the national quantum infrastructure on the grounds of their faculty.
After the meeting we are glad to announce that MTF in Trnava will be among the first to contribute to this project as a hosting node for our quantum testbed. Preparatory work and the actual implementation of the quantum node will begin in the coming weeks.
The node in Trnava plays a key role in the first phase of the project due to its geographical location. The first photons are planned to be received the in early next year inaugurating the first cross-metropolitan QKD link.
The secure transmission of QKD keys in quantum communication infrastructure is based on the properties of Qubits encoded in individual photons and guarantied by the laws of quantum physics. This activity is implemented within the framework of the European skQCI project co-financed from the Recovery and Resilience Plan. Slovak National Quantum Communication Infrastructure is part of the European Quantum Communication effort EuroQCI, whose goal is to build and connect quantum networks built in individual EU countries within this decade.
Part of the visit included a lecture by Dr. Djeylan Aktas, head of the skQCI project at IP SAS, for the students and academic community at MTF STU in Trnava. He presented the project goals and challenges to put into context the Slovak solution to building a national QKD network. He emphasized that our project is not based on commercially available so-called measure-and-prepare QKD systems, but on building a prototype quantum network based on quantum entanglement of photons (Nobel Prize for Physics in 2022). An important aspect of this solution is building our own expertise not only in the field of quantum technologies, but also in the so-called of supporting quantum technologies, which open a relatively wide space for our universities and companies to actively engage in the emerging quantum industry.
Participants of the meeting on the image on top f.l.t.r: RNDr. Pavol Surovec (QUTE.sk), Mgr. Peter Rapčan, PhD. (IP SAS), prof. RNDr. Vladimír Bužek, DrSc. (IP SAS), MSc. Djeylan Aktas PhD. (IP SAS, project leader), prof. Ing. Pavol Tanuška, PhD. (MTF STU, vice-dean), doc. Ing. I. Halenár, PhD., (MTF STU), doc. Mgr. Mário Ziman, PhD., (IP SAS director) Mgr. Andrej Buček, PhD. (ILC – The International Laser Centre of Slovak Centre of Scientific and Technical Information).