In a recently published article, researchers from the QuReP partners, University of Geneva and IDQ, along with CERN and the University of Applied Sciences in Geneva report the results of the SwissQuantum Network. The network used quantum key distribution for secure communication between the University of Geneva, CERN and the University of Applied Sciences in Geneva. The network has been running reliably for more than 18 month in real-world conditions, which proves that the technology can live up to commercial requirements. The article, published in the New Journal of Physics, has been highlighted as  an IOP select publication - despite only being published in September it has been downloaded over 250 times (only 10% of articles achieve this within a given year normally).

The 6th edition of the Quantum Information Processing with Rare-Earth doped Solids meeting took place in Barcelona on May 12-13, 2011. This meeting has historically been central to the QuReP partners with the current QuReP project having been born out of these meetings. With many of the QuReP partners in attendance, the goal of the workshop was to bring together the main European groups working in the field (as well as some overseas guests), in order to discuss on going work, new ideas, experimental challenges and potential solutions.

This year's edition was organised by ICFO (in particular the Group of Prof. Hugues de Riedmatten) and supported by ICFO as well as the European project QuReP: Quantum Repeaters for Long-Distance Fiber-Based Quantum Communication.

The recent Winter School on Practical Quantum Cryptography was a huge success with a great mix of academics and industry people. An encouraging number of people (> 40%) were coming from outside the quantum communication community.

Professor Nicolas Gisin (Center) with Scholarship winners: Alessio Avella - Università degli Studi di Torino (left) and Sergii Strelchuk - University of Cambridge (right).

We have demonstrated that photons from entangled pairs can be stored in one of our quantum memories without losing the entanglement. This proves experimentally that the atomic frequency comb storage protocol developed at the GAP-Optique is indeed suited for the use in quantum repeaters. The results have now been published in Nature [1].

The results of the experiment are threefold. It demonstrates, for the first time, the successful storage of heralded single photons in a solid-state memory with storage-and-retrieval efficiencies surpassing 20% for the shortest storage time of 25ns. Additionally, we show that the non-classical nature of the intensity correlations between two photons in a pair are preserved after the storage and retrieval process, with storage times up to 200ns. Finally, a violation of a Bell inequality by more than three standard deviations proves that the storage process creates a light-matter entangled state. These results represent the first successful mapping of energy-time entangled photons onto a quantum memory, and we note that the intrinsic multimode capability makes the AFC perfectly suitable for storing this kind of entanglement.

1. C. Clausen et al., Nature Online (2011)

Also in the media:

An article (including comments by Mikael Afzelius and Wolfgang Tittel) in Physics World: Quantum communications boosted by solid memory devices

Prof. Christine Silberhorn, from QuReP partner Universität Paderborn, received the prestigious Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize. Prof. Silberhorn has recently taken over from Prof. Wolfgang Sohler as leader of the integrated quantum optics group in the Department of Physics in Paderborn.

The QuReP consortium would like to conratulate the two winners of our scholarships to attend the third Winter School on Practical Quantum Cryptography in January 2011 in the Swiss Alps.

Alessio Avella - Università degli Studi di Torino

Sergii Strelchuk - University of Cambridge

We wish you a great and productive time at this, the 3rd Winter School on Practical Quantum Cryptography.

QuReP members, Rob Thew (University of Geneva) and Grégoire Ribordy (ID Quantique) will be attending this European Workshop “From Quantum Foundations to Quantum Technologies - Challenges for Europe” In Vienna.

Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Location: Kuppelsaal, Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien), Karlsplatz 13, 4th floor, 1040 Vienna

For more information click here

QuReP held its end of year 1 meeting in Lund on the 29th of November. In what is fast becoming a tradition, the meeting was held during some of the most severe weather conditions possible with snow, once again, doing everything it could to disrupt the meeting and everyone's arrival - see the photo below of a few of the dedicated QuReP researchers (L-R: Mikale Afzelius, Nicolas Sangoaurd, Philippe Goldner, Thierry Chanelière, Félix Bussières and Harald Hermann) preparing for an early morning departure after our meeting.

The QuReP project was recently presented in Brussels at the Photonics (area 'communication networks') Concertation meeting. The aim of this event is to present the new call 4 and 5 projects that were launched recently, allow the longer-running horizontal actions in this area to present their scope and status, and to provide the participants with the opportunity to meet and explore potential partnerships or cooperation.
Particpating projects will be expected to provide a 10-15 minute presentation at the event and to participate actively in the discussions.

The objectives of the concertation meeting are:

• to facilitate the kick-off for the Call 4 and Call 5 projects;
• to facilitate their fast integration with the running projects in the community;
• to network and explore potential synergies between projects.

All of the presentations are now on line and you can also find the QuReP presentation here.

QuReP Partner ID Quantique will be organising the third Winter School on Practical Quantum Cryptography in January 2011 in the Swiss Alps. The goal of this program is to introduce, to a general audience of physicists and computer scientists with little or no background in practical quantum cryptography, this exciting topic in a relaxed and stimulating atmosphere. The program also includes hands-on tutorials, as well key note lectures by renowned researchers Nicolas Gisin (University of Geneva), Renato Renner (ETH Zurich) and Vadim Makarov (Norwegian University of Science and Technology).

Eligibility: enrolled as a PhD student in a European research institutions on November 1st, 2010

How to Apply: Please send a resume and a one-page motivation letter to info@idquantique.com before November 19th, 2010.

Note: This scholarship does not cover traveling costs to and from the Winter School location. These costs mub be covered by the participants or their institutions. The Winter School location can be reached by train (round trip ticket train cost: approx. EUR 75) from Geneva International Airport, which has low cost airline connections to many European cities.