Caltech and JPL Launch Hybrid, High-Rate Quantum Communication Systems

Caltech and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) are collaborating on the design of a practical, high-rate, high-fidelity quantum communication system over fiber and free space. The team said that it is on track to deploy, commission, and demonstrate a free-space, municipal quantum link between JPL and Caltech in 2020-2021.

The Caltech-JPL team plans to develop and implement field programmable gate array (FBGA)-based, real-time quantum communications and use the adaptive optics system at JPL’s Table Mountain Facility (TMF) 1-meter telescope to optimize the communication rate, thereby qualifying TMF for future space-ground quantum links using small satellites and other platforms.

These space-to-ground quantum links could be used to establish a space-based quantum optical connection between the Caltech-JPL quantum network and quantum networks in labs throughout the U.S., as well as for potential industrial test beds being developed nationally and internationally.