Successful spin-out? It’s all a question of timing…

So, you have the world changing idea and maybe even the proprietary technology – but what comes next? Dr Richard Nock, founder of Qumet Technologies, discusses his plans to commercialise his research with funding and mentoring support from the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Enterprise Hub Qumet Technologies, a spin-out of Bristol University, has developed a new approach to high-resolution timing instrumentation based on digital technology. The new instrument dramatically lowers the cost of experiments in many domains, from biomedical imaging to quantum information processing research. High resolution timing instrumentation could help research scientists progress experiments in a wealth of different domains, from biomedical imaging to quantum information processing, but widespread use of the equipment has been hindered by its cost. We have developed a new device that lowers the cost significantly without sacrificing quality of results, which could therefore offer researchers at all levels access to these extremely valuable research tools. One particular research area that stands to benefit from this is quantum key distribution. This essentially means secure communications between two parties, such as making a secure payment with your smart phone. Conventional cryptography systems simply rely on the mathematical complexity required by adversaries to calculate the key code used in the transaction. The security of your credit card transactions, for example, work on the basis that the complexity of the calculations is so vast that it’s almost impossible to crack (doing so would at the very least take an extremely long time for current computers to complete). Quantum cryptography, however, is 100% secure: there is simply no way of breaking it. This is therefore extremely valuable to society and has been earmarked as an area of huge growth – the market is estimated to reach a global worth of $1 billion by 2018¹. Our technology will spur the development of intelligent quantum cryptography systems by providing researchers with affordable instrumentation for their experiments. As an end application, our core quantum key distribution system could fit into a quantum-enabled ATM cashpoint, generating secure bits for customers to use with their smart phone and bank for perfectly secure bank transfers or other secure communications. Threats to secure transactions evolve on a continuing basis, with the individuals behind them possessing impressive skills. It’s therefore vital that we support the development of even more intelligent cryptography systems to counter and stay ahead of these threats. The potential to build on this and introduce the technology to a wealth of other experimental areas exists, but relies on the ability of the instrumentation to be flexible. Similar instrumentation currently on the market tends to perform a single fixed purpose. In their useful life, they will perform only its core task on an ongoing basis. With our instrumentation being digital however, changing the functionality is simply a case of downloading a new piece of firmware to the FPGA chip (an integrated circuit designed to be configured by the user after manufacturing), meaning the entire function can be changed in less than a second, and you are in possession of a highly flexible and affordable piece of hardware that can be used across numerous experiment types. The technology also has the potential to be used beyond the lab in more direct applications, particularly if quantum key distribution becomes as widespread as has been anticipated. For example, adopting the system in applications such as laser range finding in cars. A number of vehicle manufacturers have now begun to explore using lidar (remote sensing technology) systems to help avoid collisions, and our instrumentation could have the capacity to be built into this. It also has potential for use in chemical applications, where there is a need for it in mass spectrometry to work out the mass of a particle from the time it takes to be accelerated around a bend. Our technology is being commercialised with the help of the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Enterprise Hub. As well as funding through an Enterprise Fellowship, I have been given a mentor in Academy Fellow Professor Ian Underwood, who has an enviable amount of experience in pioneering new types of technology. We are thinking beyond simply selling the basic equipment boxes to scientific researchers by considering partnerships with larger, more established organisations who could be interested in integrating our IP in their systems. Professor Underwood’s industry contacts and expertise in this area will be invaluable in approaching this properly. A challenge for us so far has been providing a system that works in line with all end users requirements. We’ve found that interested parties in different fields want varying levels of software integration. For example, some parties wish for low level access for use in custom setups, whereas others require a full set of analysis tools built into the data acquisition software. Including all of this as part of a package is a major focus area for our development. In the meantime, we’re looking at further ways that we can particularly help researchers in the high-potential cryptography domain, which only stands to need more advanced technology to combat the ever-changing threat to secure communication. The need for high resolution timing instrumentation in further research domains and applications continues to grow. By improving the accessibility of the instrumentation required, we could see cutting-edge research tools become more accessible to scientists solving problems all over the world. Helping more advanced technologies and solutions become available for everyday use is a pretty rewarding end goal to aim towards. Author Dr Richard Nock, Founder of Qumet Technologies and Royal Academy of Engineering Enterprise Fellow References http://www.prweb.com/releases/quantum_cryptography/quantum_key_distribution/prweb10897723.htm