British boffins have made a breakthrough in quantum cryptography, an advanced code-making technology which is theoretically uncrackable, by developing a single photon-emitting diode.
The researchers from the University of Cambridge and Toshiba have discovered a way of incorporating semiconductor nano-technology into an LED so they can trigger the emission of single photons at regulated times.
This is important because the security of optical quantum cryptography relies on sending a single photon carrying digital information between two parties exchanging encoded information.
The laws of quantum physics dictate that an eavesdropper could not measure the properties of a single photon without the risk of altering those properties. This means a legitimate receiver of a message can test whether it has been intercepted or altered by a hacker during transmission.
In contrast to methods based on codes, the keys formed by quantum cryptography can, in principle, be completely uncrackable.