Zhang is confident that both limitations can be overcome with technical improvements. And the security that the researchers have demonstrated is still relatively low because they included only up to six forms of twisted light in their experiments. The twisted light data storage that Zhang and his colleagues demonstrated is slow, requiring nearly 20 minutes to decode an image of the acronym “BIT,” for the Beijing Institute of Technology where the experiments were performed. “They’re using holography to store information,” rather than creating the familiar 3-D images that most people associate with holograms. from our approach in this sense,” Defrienne says. Although the researchers produced images from the holographic data, says physicist Hugo Defienne of the Paris Institute of Nanosciences, the storage itself should not be confused with holographic images.ĭefienne, who was not involved with the new research, says that other quantum holography schemes, such as his efforts with polarized photons, produce direct images of objects including microscopic structures. The researchers demonstrated their technique by encoding words and letters in holograms and reading the data back out again with twisted light. That, Zhang says, “should be enough to ensure our quantum holographic encryption system has enough security level.” Bumping that up to combinations of seven distinct twists leads to millions of possibilities. Anyone who wants to read the information out needs to know, or guess, how the light that recorded it was twisted.įor a hologram relying on two types of twist, says physicist Xiangdong Zhang of the Beijing Institute of Technology, you would have to pick the right combination of the twists from about 80 possibilities to decode the data. In addition to cramming more data into holograms, increasing the variety of twists used to record the data boosts security. The more orbital angular momentum states involved, each with different amounts of twist, the more data researchers can pack into a hologram. Instead of transmitting information on multiple, twisted light channels, photon pairs with different amounts of twist create distinct sets of data in a single hologram. Now the same approach has been applied to record data in holograms. The approach should allow high-speed data transmission because light can come with different amounts of twist, with each twist serving as a different channel of communication. In previous experiments, researchers have sent data through the air in entangled pairs of twisted photons ( SN: 8/5/15). Something that affects one of an entangled photon pair instantly affects the other, even if they are very far apart. Like any other photons, the twisted versions can be entangled so that they essentially act as one entity. But when it carries a type of rotation known as orbital angular momentum, it can also propagate in spirals that resemble twisted rotini pasta. Light can move in a variety of ways, including the up-and-down and side-to-side patterns of polarized light.
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