Jian-Wei Pan, Professor at the University of Science and Technology of China, in Hefei, is the winner of the prestigious Zeiss Research Award 2020. He is one of the world's leading researchers in the field of quantum technology.

One of the most remarkable results of Jian-Wei Pan's research is the distribution of entangled photons over a distance of 1200km, by far the longest distance ever reached. He achieved this using a light source that is installed on a satellite and emits entangled photons. Entangled photons can be used in conjunction with quantum cryptography to enable two parties to exchange a secret key.

If a secret key is exchanged, it can be used to encrypt an email or secure a bank transfer.

In addition, Jian-Wei Pan has contributed significantly to the development of optical quantum computing. He creates complex quantum states of light, such as ensembles of up to 10 entangled photons, or indistinguishable photons from many simultaneously operating single photon sources to perform boson sampling experiments.

These experiments lay important foundations for optical quantum computing. The research work shows a way to scale up such systems and thus to make practical use of their advantages.

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