PhD in Quantum System Testbed: Fibre-based coherent quantum communication

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The high-capacity optical transmission laboratory - Electrical Engineering at the Eindhoven University of Technology has a PhD position in the field-based coherent quantum communication based on the continuous variable QKD system.

Goal and Background - TU/e QKD testbed and development of evaluation site
At the TU/e campus, we are developing a world-class testbed to enable the integration of classical coherent optical transmission with Quantum key distribution (QKD) systems. QKD offers the means to increase the security of next-generation optical communication systems or even ensure unconditionally safety in combination with one-time pad encryption. The interest in QKD has risen in recent years, primarily due to the rapid progress in computation hardware, lower cost of data storage, and maturity of quantum computing technologies. The most mature QKD systems are based on single-photon detection schemes; however, continuous variable (CV) QKD has recently received much interest for several reasons. It may be implemented with off-the-shelf hardware from coherent communication technology, promising low cost and integrability to classical optical coherent transmission networks. Quantum Delta funds this particular project on developing Quantum Testbed under the CAT-2 programme on Quantum Network Testbed - https://quantumdelta.nl/accelerate-in-detail/

This novel testbed will address several critical applications with stringent key performance indicators (KPIs) and requiring high cybersecurity, e.g., robot-to-robot communication, fronthaul to a robot, robot-to-drone, broadcasting, city security, 3D-communications, 5G automated vehicle driving, to name but a few. As such the candidate will draw from novel applications in current and ongoing EU and National Projects from several groups at TU/e on 5G, Quantum secured 5G networks BRAINE and Quantum secure authentication project - NWO SMOKE and others. All activities are cross-collaborating in setting up the Quantum test-environment.

Research Challenges in the Quantum Testbed Project
The Quantum Testbed will be rolled out across the TU/e campus using locally deployed optical fibres; besides, the testbed is expected to expand into a regional network interconnecting local nodes. Operating QKD alongside classical optical signals presents several challenges such as handling the impact of impairments such as loss, noise and scattering from classical optical channels.


Role
The candidate will investigate the implementation of quantum key distribution based on coherent optical transmission techniques. The Quantum states are distributed with state-of-the-art rates at high baud rates via an optical link. QKD can then be deployed beyond secure campus area networks towards the metro and long-haul scenarios. The candidate will investigate continuous-variable QKD using a variety of modulation formats (BPSK, QPSK, etc.). Within the rich ecosystem of integrated photonics, the candidate will investigate the system-level performance of the homodyne detection schemes and improved error-correcting strategies to enhance the performance and extraction of final keys.

Note that the coexistence of quantum signals and classical coherent signals on the existing fibre infrastructure is key to the wide-scale deployment. Therefore, the development of high dimensional fiber based encoding should help to avoid deploying parallel fiber infrastructure for QKD and classical optical signals.

Work environment
Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) is one of Europe's top technological universities, in the heart of one of Europe's largest high-tech innovation ecosystems - the Eindhoven Brainport region. Research at TU/e is a combination of academic excellence and a strong real-world impact through close collaboration with regional and international high-tech industries.

The candidate will be employed within the Electro-Optical Communications Group, in particular within the high-capacity optical transmission laboratory (https://www.tue.nl/en/research/research-labs/high-capacity-optical-transmission-lab/). The candidate will strongly interact with the ECO group, which consists of over 70 researchers. This position is embedded within the new Center for Quantum Materials and Technology (QT/e) at TU/e which consists of principal investigators from Applied Physics, Electrical Engineering and Mathematics & Computer science departments- https://research.tue.nl/nl/organisations/center-for-quantum-materials-and-technology-eindhoven-qte

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