A new Bar-Ilan University study points to a major advance in quantum information processing, demonstrating a way to send, manipulate, and measure quantum information across many frequency channels simultaneously, rather than one at a time. The study was recently published in the journal Science Advances.

The approach could allow quantum communication technologies, including secure key distribution and quantum teleportation, to operate far more efficiently by taking advantage of the enormous bandwidth already available in quantum light sources.

Today, one of the main limits in quantum information processing is not the light source itself, but the measurement technology. Quantum light sources can operate across an extremely broad optical spectrum, but standard detectors can measure only a tiny fraction of that bandwidth. As a result, much of the available capacity goes unused.