Researchers devise a low-cost method to secure long-distance communication by overcoming distortions

Source: The post is based on the article “Researchers devise a low-cost method to secure long-distance communication by overcoming distortions” published in the PIB on 2nd June 2023

What is the News?

Scientists have devised a method to overcome distortion due to photon polarization posed by the constant movement of satellites. The method will overcome the scrambling of polarization in optical fibres and achieve secure long-distance communication without the use of conventional active-polarization tracking devices which are costly.

What is the need for a new method?

In this digital age, keeping one’s data secure is both a challenge and constant worry. With an increased usage of online services and payment gateways, personal data like Aadhar, PAN, phone numbers, photos, and all classified information remain highly vulnerable.

In order to counter possible data breaches by miscreants and secure communication for both personal and strategic purposes scientists at the Quantum Information and Computing (QuIC) lab at the Raman Research Institute (RRI) have come up with a solution.

Towards developing secure communication using Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) the scientists have proposed an approach using a method to perform entanglement-based QKD called BBM92 QKD protocol.

How BBM92 QKD protocol will function?

Using this approach, the need for having resource-intensive and complex conventional active-polarization tracking is negated. Therein all real-time polarization tracking is done by placing feedback-based mechanisms at regular intervals.