Artur Konrad Ekert (born 19 September 1961) is a British / Polish professor of

quantum physics Quantum mechanics is the fundamental physical Scientific theory, theory that describes the behavior of matter and of light; its unusual characteristics typically occur at and below the scale of atoms. Reprinted, Addison-Wesley, 1989, It is ...

at the Mathematical Institute,

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

, professorial fellow in quantum physics and cryptography at

Merton College, Oxford Merton College (in full: The House or College of Scholars of Merton in the University of Oxford) is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Its foundation can be traced back to the 126 ...

Lee Kong Chian Tan Sri Dato' Lee Kong Chian (; 18 October 1893 – 2 June 1967), also known by his alias Lee Geok Kun (), was a prominent Chinese Singaporean businessman and philanthropist based in Malaya and Singapore between the 1930s and the 1960s. He ...

Centennial Professor at the

National University of Singapore The National University of Singapore (NUS) is a national university, national Public university, public research university in Singapore. It was officially established in 1980 by the merging of the University of Singapore and Nanyang University ...

and the founding director of the Centre for Quantum Technologies (CQT). His research interests extend over most aspects of information processing in quantum-mechanical systems, with a focus on

quantum communication In quantum information theory, a quantum channel is a communication channel that can transmit quantum information, as well as classical information. An example of quantum information is the general dynamics of a qubit. An example of classical in ...

and quantum computation. He is best known as one of the pioneers of

quantum cryptography Quantum cryptography is the science of exploiting quantum mechanical properties to perform cryptographic tasks. The best known example of quantum cryptography is quantum key distribution, which offers an information-theoretically secure soluti ...

Early life

Ekert was born in

Wrocław Wrocław is a city in southwestern Poland, and the capital of the Lower Silesian Voivodeship. It is the largest city and historical capital of the region of Silesia. It lies on the banks of the Oder River in the Silesian Lowlands of Central Eu ...

, and studied physics at the

Jagiellonian University The Jagiellonian University (, UJ) is a public research university in Kraków, Poland. Founded in 1364 by Casimir III the Great, King Casimir III the Great, it is the oldest university in Poland and one of the List of oldest universities in con ...

Kraków , officially the Royal Capital City of Kraków, is the List of cities and towns in Poland, second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city has a population of 804,237 ...

and at the University of Oxford. Between 1987 and 1991 he was a graduate student at

Wolfson College, Oxford Wolfson College () is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Wolfson is an all-graduate college, it prides itself on being one of the most international colleges at Oxford, with part ...

. In his doctoral thesis he showed how

quantum entanglement Quantum entanglement is the phenomenon where the quantum state of each Subatomic particle, particle in a group cannot be described independently of the state of the others, even when the particles are separated by a large distance. The topic o ...

and non-locality can be used to distribute cryptographic keys with perfect security.

Career

In 1991 he was elected a junior research

fellow A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals in academia, medicine, research, and industry. The exact meaning of the term differs in each field. In learned society, learned or professional society, p ...

and subsequently (1994) a research fellow at

. At the time he established the first research group in quantum cryptography and computation, based in the Clarendon Laboratory, Oxford. Subsequently, it evolved into the Centre for Quantum Computation, now based at DAMTP in Cambridge. Between 1993 and 2000 he held a position of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

Howe Fellow. In 1998 he was appointed a professor of physics at the University of Oxford and a fellow and tutor in physics at

Keble College, Oxford Keble College () is one of the Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Its main buildings are on Parks Road, opposite the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, University Museum a ...

. From 2002 until 2006 he was the Leigh-Trapnell Professor of Quantum Physics at the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics,

Cambridge University The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

and a professorial fellow of

King's College, Cambridge King's College, formally The King's College of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge, is a List of colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college lies beside the River Cam and faces ...

. Since 2006 he is professor of quantum physics at the

Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford The Mathematical Institute is the mathematics department at the University of Oxford in England. It is one of the nine departments of the university's Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences Division. The institute includes both pure and app ...

. Also in 2006 was appointed a Lee Kong Chian Centennial Professor at the National University of Singapore and became the founding director of the Centre for Quantum Technologies (CQT). After retiring from the director position in 2020 he remains a ''Distinguished Fellow'' at CQT. In 2020 he joined the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology as ''adjunct professor''. He has worked with and advised several companies and government agencies, served on various professional advisory boards, and is the Vice Chairman of The Noel Croucher Foundation.

Research

Ekert's research extends over most aspects of information processing in quantum-mechanical systems, with a focus on quantum cryptography and quantum computation. Building on the idea of quantum non-locality and Bell's inequalities he introduced entanglement-based quantum key distribution. His 1991 paper generated a spate of new research that established a vigorously active new area of

physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...

and

cryptography Cryptography, or cryptology (from "hidden, secret"; and ''graphein'', "to write", or ''-logy, -logia'', "study", respectively), is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of Adversary (cryptography), ...

. It is one of the most cited papers in the field and was chosen by the editors of the ''

Physical Review Letters ''Physical Review Letters'' (''PRL''), established in 1958, is a peer-reviewed, scientific journal that is published 52 times per year by the American Physical Society. The journal is considered one of the most prestigious in the field of physics ...

'' as one of their "milestone letters", i.e. papers that made important contributions to physics, announced significant discoveries, or started new areas of research. His subsequent work with John Rarity and Paul Tapster, from the

Defence Research Agency The Defence Research Agency (DRA) was an executive agency of the UK Ministry of Defence (MOD) from April 1991 until April 1995. At the time, the DRA was Britain's largest science and technology organisation. In April 1995, the DRA was combined w ...

(DRA) in Malvern, resulted in the proof-of-principle experimental quantum key distribution, introducing parametric down-conversion, phase encoding and quantum interferometry into the repertoire of cryptography. He and collaborators were the first to develop the concept of a security proof based on entanglement purification. Ekert and colleagues have made a number of contributions to both theoretical aspects of quantum computation and proposals for its experimental realisations. These include proving that almost any quantum logic gate operating on two quantum bits is universal, proposing one of the first realistic implementations of quantum computation, e.g. using the induced dipole-dipole coupling in an optically driven array of

quantum dots Quantum dots (QDs) or semiconductor nanocrystals are semiconductor particles a few nanometres in size with optical and electronic properties that differ from those of larger particles via quantum mechanical effects. They are a central topic i ...

, introducing more stable geometric quantum logic gates, and proposing "noiseless encoding", which became later known as decoherence free subspaces. His other notable contributions include work on quantum state swapping, optimal quantum state estimation and quantum state transfer. With some of the same collaborators, he has written on connections between the notion of mathematical proofs and the laws of physics. He has also contributed semi-popular writing on the history of science.

Honours and awards

For his discovery of quantum cryptography he was awarded the 1995 Maxwell Medal and Prize by the

Institute of Physics The Institute of Physics (IOP) is a UK-based not-for-profit learned society and professional body that works to advance physics education, physics research, research and applied physics, application. It was founded in 1874 and has a worldwide ...

, the 2007

Hughes Medal The Hughes Medal is a silver-gilt medal awarded by the Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. T ...

by the Royal Society, the 2019 Micius Quantum Prize and the 2024 Royal Society Milner Award. He is also a co-recipient of the 2004

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

Descartes Prize. In 2016 he was elected a

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the Fellows of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural science, natural knowledge, incl ...

. He is a fellow of the Singapore National Academy of Science and a recipient of the 2017 Singapore Public Administration Medal (Silver) Pingat Pentadbiran Awam. He is a foreign member of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences.

References

External links