Scientists may have discovered the missing element for the quantum internet

Denmark is investing over 5 million euros in an ambitious initiative to build a quantum internet.

Many research facilities are developing the quantum internet in parallel. The quantum internet is expected to offer greater computational power, improved reliability, and enhanced security, and is not intended to replace our current internet, but rather to complement it.

Scientists from Denmark and Germany are working with a new type of quantum light source that could travel long distances and remember information.

“This seemed unrealistic just a few years ago, but now we see a path forward," says the project coordinator, Søren Stobbe, professor at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU).

Scientists are eyeing a rare material – erbium. While it’s not ideal, they think they might have found a way to make it work.

"We intend to use advanced ion beam techniques to implant erbium atoms into tiny silicon structures and study how using ultra-pure silicon can improve their performance. This research will lay the foundation for building quantum devices that can be integrated into today's technology," explains Dr. Yonder Berencén, the project's principal investigator from the Institute of Ion Beam Physics and Materials Research at HZDR (Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR).

The project, dubbed EQUAL (Erbium-based silicon quantum light sources), received 40 million Danish crowns (about 5.3 million euros) from the Innovation Fund Denmark and will run for five years.

So far, the biggest problem with the quantum internet seems to be data loss, as all it takes to destroy data is one lost photon.