COMPHORT

An ideal single-photon source produces a single photon at the push of a button. The best sources today deliver photons with high probability, but they need pulsed lasers, cryogenics and specialist staff — so many users settle for simpler probabilistic sources.

COMPHORT is developing a user-friendly, “plug & play” single-photon source that works without bulky lasers or cryogenics. It exploits quantum emitters in hexagonal boron nitride operating at ambient conditions, integrated into bespoke open optical cavities to boost brightness and collection, and packaged into a robust assembly with a monolithically integrated pump LED for electrical driving.

To showcase real-world use, the consortium will implement free-space quantum key distribution, in the laboratory and over a metropolitan free-space link in Berlin — relevant wherever optical fibre is unavailable or nodes move: disaster zones, field hospitals, vehicles, drones and, in the future, satellites. Working with industrial partners, COMPHORT aims to bring Europe a sovereign, market-ready quantum light technology.