Quantum Link Verification
With the upsurge of data storage migration to public cloud environments the need to ensure data confidentiality and integrity becomes increasingly critical. Fibre optic, encryption and post-quantum encryption are various approaches to data protection but these have limitations.
Researchers at The University of Queensland have developed an approach to verify the physical security of fibre optic cabling using quantum technology. The cable can be continuously monitored and, if compromised, data transmission halted.
Quantum Link Verification relies on well-documented, tested and verified scientific concepts and can be demonstrated using off-the-shelf hardware. The next step is a lab-based demonstration to show the proof of concept for integration within classical communication networks.
In the longer term, the technology can be applied to emerging communications links, for example free space optical links using LEO satellite networks.
Key features:
- Verify fibre optic communications links using ‘unspoofable’ quantum technology
- Backwards compatible with fibre infrastructure
- Uses commercial off-the-shelf components.
Perovskite composite material with improved optical properties and stability
The optoelectronic properties of metal halide perovskite (MHP) semiconductors make them attractive for use as active materials in photovoltaics, LEDs, ionizing radiation detection and photocatalysis. However the practical application of MHPs faces significant barriers. Researchers at The University of Queensland have developed a new class of MHP composites. The precursors can be made from relatively cheap materials, using a scalable mechanochemical process. Similarly, the composite material is fabricated via nearly solvent-free and scalable processing steps.
Key benefits:
- Composite produced using scalable and cost-effective solid-state processing techniques
- Orders of magnitude brighter photoluminescence of composite compared to pure metal halide perovskite
- 10,000 h underwater stability and over two years’ storage stability in air.
A new quantum technology for terahertz imaging and sensing
Researchers at The University of Queensland (UQ) have developed a technology that constitutes a major leap beyond the current commercially available systems. UQ researchers have developed a laser feedback interferometric (LFI) transceiver based on a terahertz (THz) quantum cascade laser (QCL) utilising patent pending technology. The transceiver is built around a small footprint (~2mm) THz QCL and provides a clear pathway towards commercially viable, low maintenance THz sensing and imaging systems.
The THz frequency band is the most recent portion of the electromagnetic spectrum to be technologically harnessed for imaging and sensing applications. While significant advancements have been achieved in deploying sensors and full-body scanners operating at millimetre-wave frequencies, access to the genuine THz spectrum (1-10 THz) will be required for the next generation of high-performance, high resolution imaging and sensing systems.
Key benefits:
- High-resolution, high frame-rate imaging
- Compact and simple: THz illuminator and camera in one package
- High sensitivity and high power.
Passive on-chip microwave circulator
Researchers at the University of Queensland (UQ) have developed a new design for a passive, integrated, on-chip, superconducting microwave circulator with high bandwidth (~500 MHz).
Microwave circulators are ubiquitous elements in microwave electronics and are essential to both fundamental science as well as commercial technology such as radar and mobile phone communications. Commercially available circulators are wave-interference devices based on the Faraday effect, which requires relatively strong permanent magnets to break time-reversal symmetry. Both their size and the necessary strong magnetic fields make them unsuited to large-scale integration with superconducting circuits.
The design by UQ researchers is based on superconducting tunnel junctions, either Josephson (JJ) or quantum phase slip (QPS) junctions in a ring geometry. Two further improvements have been demonstrated in a second-generation design which increases linearity of circuits, as well as development of a design approach that increases bandwidth and reduces sensitivity to perturbations in external bias parameters.
Key benefits:
- Replaces large (cm-scale) discrete component with small on-chip integrated component
- High bandwidth and high power design
- Key enabler for superconducting quantum devices and computing
- Small footprint and device volume scales to arrays of 10,000s with existing tools and processes.
Solaris AI
In large scale PV farms, monitoring systems are mostly built into the inverter to prevent anomalies on the utility side and reporting the PV status. However it is extremely difficult to detect any malfunction in any string/module with inverter level monitoring. UQ researchers have developed technology to provide real-time fault detection, fault location and identification for PV monitoring.
Key features
- Solar Farm Fault Detection and Diagnosis (Solaris AI) is an all-in-one system that automatically detects and locates faulty/underperforming photo-voltaic (PV) panels
- Solaris AI is capable of automatically identifying the cause of PV panel underperformance
- Solaris AI can predict PV panel soiling levels so that cleaning can be targeted where it is needed
- Applications in PV operations and maintenance of solar farms, industrial solar applications, commercial solar installations and residential.
Improved spectral efficiency in digital communications
Orthogonal precoding is a promising, linear technique in which the null space of a precoding matrix with orthonormal columns is designed to suppress the sidelobes. However, orthogonal precoders suffer from high arithmetic complexity which has limited their application. UQ research has established that the arithmetic complexity can be made linear instead of quadratic if a block reflector or generalised Householder transformation is used to perform the orthogonal precoding instead of the otherwise unstructured unitary transformation.
Key features
- relevant to wide range of digital communications, including 5G and 6G
- potential 20% spectral efficiency increase compared to industry-standard 5G approaches
- compatible with MIMO approaches.
Record efficiency QD solar cell
Researchers at the University of Queensland (UQ) have had a recent breakthrough on low-cost emerging generation quantum dot solar cells (QDSCs) that achieve a world record stabilised efficiency.
Key features
- Novel synthesis procedure for quantum dot ink for solar cells with record low loss
- Fast rate of synthesis
- Fabrication method results in superior stability and optoelectronic property compared to the current best in class QDSC
- Tuneable bandgap and narrow emission peaks
- Printable technology on flexible substrates.
New technology speeds up pathology workflows
Rapid precision-scanning technology to speed up medical diagnoses and help address Australia’s shortage of trained pathologists is being developed at the University of Queensland (UQ).
UQ’s Digital Pathology team is working to replace glass pathology slides with digital slides for faster analysis, distribution and storage. Almost 70 per cent of GP diagnoses are based on pathology tests, and the changes could revolutionise laboratories. The project could also have applications in immunology, histopathology and microbiology.
The group is using UQ’s newest high-performance computer, Wiener, for its work, with the support of UQ’s Research Computing Centre. A fully automated scanning system for immunology tests has already been deployed and is in use in a pathology laboratory.
