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All sources NASA NTRS DOE OSTI

DOE OSTI2021

Test Points for Online Monitoring of Quantum Circuits

Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) computers consisting of tens of inherently noisy quantum bits (qubits) suffer from reliability problems. Qubits and their gates are susceptible to various types of errors. Due to limited numbers of qubits and high error rates, quantum error correction cannot be applied. Physical constraints of quantum hardware including the error rates are used to guide the design and the layout of quantum circuits. The error rates determine the selection of qubits and their operations. The resulting circuit is executed on the quantum computer. This study explores the risk of unexpected changes in the error rates of NISQ computers post-calibration. We show that unexpected changes in error rates can alter the output state of a quantum circuit. To detect these changes, we propose the insertion of test points into the quantum circuit to enable online monitoring of the physical qubit behavior. We utilize classical, superposition, and uncompute test points. Furthermore, we use a gate error coverage metric to assess the quality of the tests. We verify the effectiveness of the proposed scheme on different IBM quantum computers (IBM Q), in addition to a noisy simulation that shows the scalability of the proposed approach.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

DOE OSTI2025

Quantum Wrapper Networking for Entanglement Management and Control in Transparent Optical Quantum Networks

The overarching goal of this three-year project was to design and experimentally demonstrate a quantum wrapper networking (QWN) protocol and architecture for entanglement management and control in coexisted classical-quantum networks, facilitating a global quantum Internet. In QWN, the quantum payload (qubits) is wrapped with classical bits as a header. The classical bits facilitate end-to-end transport of the quantum payload without having to read or alter the quantum data payload at intermediate switches and routers.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

DOE OSTI2025

Testbed and Experiments for Quantum-Conventional Networking

The realization of quantum networks requires the development of devices and methods unprecedented in conventional networks, and yet they critically depend on the latter for implementing foundational blocks and essential operations. We describe a testbed to support the development and testing of their functionality and performance by providing quantum and conventional data planes and devices, together with a secure conventional control plane. It incorporates a variety of entangled photon sources, qubit technologies, detector technologies, photonic components, and supporting conventional switches and workstations. It implements a novel fiber telescoping scheme that provides suites of connections using fiber spools and inground-aerial fiber loops. We briefly summarize a variety of experiments conducted over this testbed including: (i) flex-grid quantum connection experiments, (ii) quantum state and channel tomography, (iii) utilization of quantum key distribution keys to secure conventional encryption and firewall devices, (iv) comparative study of analytical capacity estimates and entanglement throughput, (v) deployed squeezing coexisting with conventional communications, and (iv) measurement of polarization time variation.

Rao, Nageswara [ORNL] (ORCID:0000000234085941)↗

DOE OSTI2025

Dependable classical-quantum computing systems engineering

Increasing evidence suggests quantum computing (QC) complements traditional High-Performance Computing (HPC) by leveraging its unique capabilities, leading to the emergence of a new, hybrid paradigm, QHPC. However, this integration introduces new challenges, with dependability–defined by reproducibility, resiliency, and security and privacy–emerging as a central concern for building trustworthy systems that provide an advantage to the users. This paper proposes a framework for dependable QHPC system design, organized around these three pillars. We identify integration challenges, anticipate roadblocks, and highlight productive synergies across QC, HPC, cloud platforms, and network security. Drawing from both classical computing principles and quantum-specific insights, we present a roadmap for co-design that supports robust hybrid architectures. Our approach offers concrete metrics for assessing dependability, provides design guidance for engineers working at the QC-HPC interface, and surfaces new engineering questions around complexity, scale, and fault tolerance. Ultimately, designing for dependability is key to realizing practical, scalable QHPC systems and accelerating the broader quantum ecosystem capable of translating quantum promises into actual application delivery.

HPC↗

DOE OSTI2025

A Quantum Leap for Dynamic Radiography

Dynamic radiography techniques have been instrumental in advancing the National Nuclear Security Administration's (NNSA) mission since WWII. This paper explores the transformative potential of quantum information science (QIS) to revolutionize dynamic radiography through enhanced image processing, tomographic reconstruction, statistics and uncertainty quantification (UQ), and artificial intelligence integration. By leveraging quantum algorithms to extract previously inaccessible information from existing datasets, this interdisciplinary approach promises unprecedented insights at the intersection of dynamic imaging, artificial intelligence, and quantum information technologies.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

DOE OSTI2023

CRADA Number NFE-20-08292 with Quantum Lock Technologies LLC (CRADA Final Report)

At Quantum Lock Technologies, our mission is to use future-proof hardware and software to bridge the gap between physical access control and cyber security. Physical security includes access to doors, lockboxes/containers, and machinery/robots. Connecting physical access control to the cloud allows for remote detection, fast ledger updates, and mobile or remote access. However, this also opens physical security up to the world of cyber-attacks. At Quantum Lock, we use quantum random number generation to generate completely random and unpredictable digital keys to be used by connected equipment in a facility. This quantum technology is then paired with end-to-end encryption and a one-time-key communication protocol to ensure the highest level of security. Through the Innovation Crossroads program at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, we have developed benchtop prototypes of our technology, connected with utility boards as our first target customers, and prepared for our first pilot with customers (target end of summer 2022).

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

DOE OSTI2023

Quantum Lock Technologies: Innovation Crossroads Final Report

45 MILITARY TECHNOLOGY, WEAPONRY, AND NATIONAL DEF↗

DOE OSTI2023

Quantum Lock Technologies: Innovation Crossroads Final CRADA Report

42 ENGINEERING↗

DOE OSTI2021

Request for Information: Access to Quantum Systems

Quantum science and technology is a focal point of research at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). Quantum-coherent devices offer the potential for unprecedented precision in sensing and the ability to directly simulate complex quantum phenomena that have no known efficient classical algorithms. Thus, development and implementation of quantum technologies is expected to have a significant impact on our ability to address some of the most complex national security problems. LLNL maintains projects involving a broad spectrum of Quantum Information Science (QIS) research activities including investigating sources of decoherence, the 3DQ microscope, studies into quantum interconnects, 3-D printed ion traps, fusion energy and nuclear physics simulations, modeling for data-starved environments, and quantum sensing, including accelerometry and timing.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

DOE OSTI2024

Quantum Annealing for Real-World Machine Learning Applications

Optimizing the training of a machine learning pipeline is important for reducing training costs and improving model performance. One such optimizing strategy is quantum annealing, which is an emerging computing paradigm that has shown potential in optimizing the training of a machine learning model. The implementation of a physical quantum annealer has been realized by D-Wave systems and is available to the research community for experiments. Recent experimental results on a variety of machine learning applications have shown interesting results especially under the conditions where the performance of classical machine learning techniques are limited such as limited training data and high dimensional features. This chapter explores the application of D-Wave’s quantum annealer for optimizing machine learning pipelines for real-world classification problems. We review the application domains on which a physical quantum annealer has been used to train machine learning classifiers. We discuss and analyze the experiments performed on the D-Wave quantum annealer for applications such as image recognition, remote sensing imagery, security, computational biology, biomedical sciences, and physics. We discuss the possible advantages and the problems for which quantum annealing is likely to be advantageous over classical computation.

Kumar nath, Rajdeep↗

NASA NTRS2019

Quantum Technologies for UAS (QTech)

Recent advances in small Unmanned Aerial System (sUAS) technologies lower the barriers for use by both private and commercial entities. However, these advances are also likely to lead to greater vehicle densities, a more heterogenous mix of vehicles and equipment and greater levels of vehicle autonomy, which can increase the chance for communications disruptions. For the safe and secure operation of these vehicles, it is essential to have a robust communications network. This work is focused on harnessing the power of quantum technologies to enable this robust communications network by: (1) utilizing quantum optimization algorithms to design robust network with routing redundancy that can respond adaptively to dynamically changing real-time environment and disruptions, (2) utilize quantum optimization algorithms resource allocation for detection, localization, and tracking of mobile communication disruption agents and (3) utilize quantum key distribution (QKD) to execute secure key sharing in anti-jamming protocols for secure radio frequency (RF) communication. Efforts to map these quantum optimization algorithms to commercially available quantum annealers and soon to be available general-purpose gate-model quantum hardware architectures will be reviewed, and plans for testing the solutions to these algorithms through indoor sUAS flight tests will be discussed. Lastly, efforts to miniaturize and practically deploy Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) hardware, which could ultimately be used to securely exchange encryption keys, in sUAS networks will be reviewed.

Quantum Computing↗

DOE OSTI2022

Dynamic attenuation scheme in measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution over turbulent channels

Measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution (MDI QKD) offers great security in practice because it removes all detector side channels. However, conducting MDI QKD over free-space channels is challenging. One of the largest culprits is the mismatched transmittance of the two independent turbulent channels causing a reduced Hong-Ou-Mandel visibility and thus a lower secret key rate. Here we introduce a dynamic attenuation scheme, where the transmittance of each of the two channels is monitored in real time by transmitting bright light pulses from each users to the measurement device. Based on the measured channel transmittance, a suitable amount of attenuation is introduced to the low-loss channel at the measurement device. Our simulation results show a significant improvement of QKD performance, especially when using short raw keys.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

DOE OSTI2023

Experimental Guesswork with Quantum Side Information Using Twisted Light

Guesswork is an information–theoretic quantity which can be seen as an alternate security criterion to entropy. Recent work has established the theoretical framework for guesswork in the presence of quantum side information, which we extend both theoretically and experimentally. We consider guesswork when the side information consists of the BB84 states and their higher-dimensional generalizations. With this side information, we compute the guesswork for two different scenarios for each dimension. We then performed a proof-of-principle experiment using Laguerre–Gauss modes to experimentally compute the guesswork for higher-dimensional generalizations of the BB84 states. We find that our experimental results agree closely with our theoretical predictions. This work shows that guesswork can be a viable security criterion in cryptographic tasks and is experimentally accessible in a number of optical setups.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

DOE OSTI2020

Programmable Quantum Networked Microgrids

Quantum key distribution (QKD) provides a potent solution to securely distribute keys for two parties. However, QKD itself is vulnerable to denial of service (DoS) attacks. A flexible and resilient QKD-enabled networked microgrids (NMs) architecture is needed but does not yet exist. In this article, we present a programmable quantum NMs (PQNMs) architecture. It is a novel framework that integrates both QKD and software-defined networking (SDN) techniques capable of enabling scalable, programmable, quantum-engineered, and ultra-resilient NMs. Equipped with a software-defined adaptive post-processing approach, a two-level key pool sharing strategy and an SDN-enabled event-triggered communication scheme, these PQNMs mitigate the impact of DoS attacks through programmable post-processing and secure key sharing among QKD links, a capability unattainable using existing technologies. Through comprehensive evaluations, we validate the benefits of PQNMs and demonstrate the efficacy of the presented strategies under various circumstances. Extensive results provide insightful resources for building QKD-enabled NMs in practice.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

DOE OSTI2024

Entanglement-based quantum digital signatures over a deployed campus network

The quantum digital signature protocol offers a replacement for most aspects of public-key digital signatures ubiquitous in today’s digital world. A major advantage of a quantum-digital-signatures protocol is that it can have information-theoretic security, whereas public-key cryptography cannot. Here we demonstrate and characterize hardware to implement entanglement-based quantum digital signatures over our campus network. Over 25 hours, we collect measurements on our campus network, where we measure sufficiently low quantum bit error rates (<5% in most cases) which in principle enable quantum digital signatures at over 50 km as shown through rigorous simulation accompanied by a noise model developed specifically for our implementation. These results show quantum digital signatures can be successfully employed over deployed fiber. Moreover, our reported method provides great flexibility in the number of users, but with reduced entanglement rate per user. Finally, while the current implementation of our entanglement-based approach has a low signature rate, feasible upgrades would significantly increase the signature rate.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

DOE OSTI2025

Traceable random numbers from a non-local quantum advantage

The unpredictability of random numbers is fundamental to both digital security and applications that fairly distribute resources. However, existing random number generators have limitations—the generation processes cannot be fully traced, audited and certified to be unpredictable. The algorithmic steps used in pseudorandom number generators are auditable, but they cannot guarantee that their outputs were a priori unpredictable given knowledge of the initial seed. Device-independent quantum random number generators can ensure that the source of randomness was unknown beforehand, but the steps used to extract the randomness are vulnerable to tampering. Here we demonstrate a fully traceable random number generation protocol based on device-independent techniques. Our protocol extracts randomness from unpredictable non-local quantum correlations, and uses distributed intertwined hash chains to cryptographically trace and verify the extraction process. This protocol forms the basis for a public traceable and certifiable quantum randomness beacon that we have launched. Over the first 40 days of operation, we completed the protocol 7,434 out of 7,454 attempts—a success rate of 99.7%. Each time the protocol succeeded, the beacon emitted a pulse of 512 bits of traceable randomness. The bits are certified to be uniform with error multiplied by actual success probability bounded by 2−64. Further, the generation of certifiable and traceable randomness represents a public service that operates with an entanglement-derived advantage over comparable classical approaches.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

DOE OSTI2020

Spotlight: Quantum Information Science and Technology

U.S. stakeholders from academia, industry, and government recognize the need for the United States to cement itself as a technology leader in the coming quantum economy. Our national investments in quantum technology must keep pace with those of other countries to secure a significant share of future markets and the associated economic opportunities. This spotlight document showcases DOE's efforts in the arena of Quantum Information Science & Technology, highlighting significant public-private engagements, DOE programs, and funding opportunities designed to keep America at the fore of this rapidly developing suite of technologies.

77 NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY↗

DOE OSTI2025

Quantum sensing for emerging energy technologies

The ability to exploit quantum phenomena has enabled sensing technologies with detection limits below the classical limit. Sensors with applications in energy discovery, production, transportation, and consumption can be enhanced through quantum or hybrid quantum-classical sensors. Here, in this Review, we provide an overview of commercial and emerging quantum sensor platforms and their opportunity areas specific to advanced energy technologies. Key examples include: power grid-enhancing-technologies, where quantum magnetometers can detect powerline and transformer faults; electric vehicle-to-grid applications, where chip-scale atomic clocks can enable grid synchronization; and carbon capture and storage, where quantum gravimeters and single-photo LiDAR can detect microscopic leaks. Quantum sensor deployment requires further research into miniaturization and ruggedization for field deployment, cost-reduction, and workforce development. The maturation of clean energy technologies and quantum sensors provide opportunities for synergy, with the integration of quantum sensors into advanced energy technologies maximizing their security, reliability, and efficiency.

critical metals↗