Quantum communications in space
John Rarity, P.M. Gorman, Paul Knight, Harald Weinfurter, Christian Kurtsiefer · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 2004
Coding data bits in the phase or polarization state of light allows us to exploit the wave particle duality for novel communication protocols. Using this principle the first practical quantum communication systems have been built. These are the fiber and free-space quantum cryptography apparatus used for secure exchange of keys. Beyond this state of the art, various quantum communication schemes are being studied including entangled state key exchange quantum dense coding, state teleportation, and entanglement swapping. The feasibility, advantages and disadvantages of space based realisations of these novel schemes are discussed.