Corning’s ultra-low-loss optical cable won the bid for the country’s first commercial trunk line for quantum secure communications
Chengdu Corning Optical Cable Co., Ltd. received a bid winning notice from Zhejiang Shenzhou Quantum Communication Technology Co., Ltd. The ultra-low loss optical cable provided by Chengdu Corning Optical Cable Co., Ltd. successfully won the bid for the "Hangzhou-Shanghai Quantum Commercial Trunk Line" project.
The project, with a total length of 280 kilometers, is the country’s first commercial quantum secure communication trunk line. It has six relay and access sites in Hangzhou, Wuzhen, and Shanghai. It will be used for commercial quantum secure communication applications after completion.
In the future, governments, banks, enterprises and other units along the Shanghai-Hangzhou line that have higher requirements for confidential data transmission will be able to obtain dedicated line data services with strong security and high confidentiality.
Zhejiang Shenzhou Quantum Communication Technology Co., Ltd. is a high-tech company responsible for the construction and operation of the quantum communication backbone network, the research and development of mobile quantum technology and the application of quantum communication security technology. It is the only operator of the 'Hangzhou-Shanghai Quantum Commercial Backbone' business.
In the future, China Quantum Company will build quantum communication network infrastructure in East China, South China, North China, Central China and other regions, build national quantum communication trunk lines and metropolitan area networks, and provide high-trust secure network operation services.
The principle of quantum secure communication is to take advantage of the unmeasurable and non-replicable properties of quantum states. Quantum keys are used to encrypt information at two sections of the communication optical cable. If the information is intercepted or copied, the quantum state will be destroyed and will generate Garbled characters,Destroying the protective layer of the key allows both parties to know the existence of the eavesdropper, so quantum communication encryption is even called an "absolutely secure" data transmission solution.
On the one hand, the non-copiable nature of quantum states ensures the safe transmission of information.
But on the other hand, it also brings challenges to the transmission technology.
Quantum secure communication still requires the use of optical fiber channels for transmission. If amplifiers such as EDFA for conventional communications are used to extend the link distance, the presence of the amplifier will interfere with the quantum state and destroy its confidentiality. performance, so its transmission distance is related to the detector performance and the attenuation performance of the optical fiber channel.
Corning has been committed to developing high-performance optical fiber products to help increase the transmission distance of quantum communications.
In early 2015, the latest quantum communication research results were jointly published in Nature Photonics with the University of Geneva research team: the longest transmission distance of 307 kilometers was achieved based on Corning SMF-28ULL ultra-low loss optical fiber.
In the "Hangzhou-Shanghai Quantum Commercial Trunk Line", Corning's SMF-28ULL optical fiber is also used. This optical fiber can achieve an attenuation of 0.16dB/km, compared with 0.20dB/km of ordinary optical fiber. Attenuation can extend the system transmission distance by 20%.
This will achieve better transmission performance and longer transmission distance, laying a solid foundation for building the "Hangzhou-Shanghai Quantum Trunk Line" into a quality project.
