Lifeboat Foundation

The US is well behind China on this front, though. A team led by quantum supremo Jian-Wei Pan have already demonstrated a host of breakthroughs in transmitting quantum signals to satellites, most recently developing a mobile quantum satellite station.

The reason both countries are rushing to develop the technology is that it could provide an ultra-secure communication channel in an era where cyberwarfare is becoming increasingly common.

I t’s essentially impossible to eavesdrop on a quantum conversation. The strange rules of quantum mechanics mean that measuring a quantum state immediately changes it, so any message encoded in quantum states will be corrupted if someone tries to intercept it.

Under DARPA’s Photonics in the Package for Extreme Scalability (PIPES) program, researchers from Intel and Ayar Labs have demonstrated early progress towards improving chip connectivity with photons – or light. Signaling over optical fibers enables the internet today and optical transceivers are ubiquitous in data centers, yet digital systems still rely upon the movement of electrons over metal wires to push data between integrated circuits (ICs) on a board. Increasingly, the limitations of electrical signaling from the chip package restrict overall bandwidth and signaling efficiency, throttling the performance of advanced systems. The PIPES program is exploring ways to expand the use of optical components to address these constraints and enable digital microelectronics with new levels of performance.

Researchers from Intel and Ayar Labs working on PIPES have successfully replaced the traditional electrical input/output (I/O) of a state-of-the-art field programmable gate array (FPGA) with efficient optical signaling interfaces. The demonstration leverages an optical interface developed by Ayar Labs called TeraPHY, an optical I/O chiplet that replaces electrical serializer/deserializer (SERDES) chiplets. These SERDES chiplets traditionally compensate for limited I/O when there is a need for fast data movement, enabling high-speed communications and other capabilities. Using Intel’s advanced packaging and interconnect technology, the team integrated TeraPHY and the Intel FPGA core within a single package, creating a multi-chip module (MCM) with in-package optics. The integrated solution substantially improves interconnect reach, efficiency, and latency – enabling high-speed data links with single mode optical fibers coming directly from the FPGA.

Scientists have developed a prototype system that could hypothetically see data transfer rates hit 10 terabits per second – or many thousands of times faster than your average broadband speed, in other words.

This radical jump could be made possible by switching to an extremely high frequency for the data transfer, allowing for more bandwidth (a greater volume of data) to be squeezed into the same space, and boosting the overall transfer rate.

There has previously been some doubt as to whether a higher frequency wave structure (or waveguide) such as the one explored here could be sufficiently protected against interference, but with this latest study, the scientists think they may have cracked the problem.

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CONSPIRACY nuts are reportedly setting phone masts alight and targeting engineers after a bizarre claim 5G “radiation” caused the deadly coronavirus spread.

The theory originated last month after a video filmed at a US health conference claimed Africa was not as affected by the disease because it is “not a 5G region”.

Continue reading “5G coronavirus conspiracists BURNING phone masts amid bizarre claim ‘radiation’ sparked killer bug” »

A fundamental challenge in the creation of a “quantum internet” is how to securely transmit data between two points. But one team of U.S. scientists may have found the answer.

New research from experts at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) suggests atoms in small boxes of light — optical cavities — could soon “form the backbone technology” of the futuristic internet that relies on the mysterious properties of quantum mechanics for ultra-fast computing.

Using the same technology that allows high-frequency signals to travel on regular phone lines, researchers tested sending extremely high-frequency, 200 GHz signals through a pair of copper wires. The result is a link that can move data at rates of terabits per second, significantly faster than currently available channels.

While the technology to disentangle multiple, parallel signals moving through a channel already exists, thanks to signal processing methods developed by John Cioffi, the inventor of digital subscriber lines, or DSL, questions remained related to the effectiveness of implementing these ideas at higher frequencies.

To test the transmission of data at higher frequencies, authors of a paper published this week in Applied Physics Letters used experimental measurements and mathematical modeling to characterize the input and output signals in a waveguide.

Engineers at Caltech have shown that atoms in optical cavities—tiny boxes for light—could be foundational to the creation of a quantum internet. Their work was published on March 30 by the journal Nature.

Quantum networks would connect quantum computers through a system that also operates at a quantum, rather than classical, level. In theory, quantum computers will one day be able to perform certain functions faster than classical computers by taking advantage of the special properties of quantum mechanics, including superposition, which allows quantum bits to store information as a 1 and a 0 simultaneously.

As they can with classical computers, engineers would like to be able to connect multiple quantum computers to share data and work together—creating a “quantum internet.” This would open the door to several applications, including solving computations that are too large to be handled by a single quantum computer and establishing unbreakably secure communications using quantum cryptography.

Any device that sends out a Wi-Fi signal also emits terahertz waves —electromagnetic waves with a frequency somewhere between microwaves and infrared light. These high-frequency radiation waves, known as “T-rays,” are also produced by almost anything that registers a temperature, including our own bodies and the inanimate objects around us.

Terahertz waves are pervasive in our daily lives, and if harnessed, their concentrated power could potentially serve as an alternate energy source. Imagine, for instance, a cellphone add-on that passively soaks up ambient T-rays and uses their energy to charge your phone. However, to date, terahertz waves are wasted energy, as there has been no practical way to capture and convert them into any usable form.

Now physicists at MIT have come up with a blueprint for a device they believe would be able to convert ambient terahertz waves into a direct current, a form of electricity that powers many household electronics.

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