University of Padova and ThinkQuantum Demonstrate 18-km Intermodal Free-Space QKD with Room-Temperature Detectors
Mohamed Abdel-Kareem2026-08-26T17:22:39-07:00Researchers from the University of Padova, Italian photonics firm ThinkQuantum s.r.l., and the National Research Council of Italy (CNR-IFN) have published a real-time field trial of an intermodal quantum key distribution (QKD) system in npj Quantum Information. The experiment connected a remote optical transmitter on Monte Grande to an urban Optical Ground Station (OGS) at the University of Padova across an 18-km horizontal free-space link, which then coupled into a 0.5-km deployed fiber network to reach a receiver laboratory. [ Intermodal 18-km Free-Space to Fiber QKD Architecture ]Optical Transmitter & ChannelAdaptive Optics & Receiver OGSQuantum Hardware & Key Rates• 18-km Free-Space [...]