Seminar(kenkyukai)
From: Japan

Examining the prospective benefits to society of instantaneous and secure quantum communications

I was always interested in physics, mathematics, computer science, and economics, and at SFC by choosing to study quantum information processing and a second seminar in economics, I was able to follow all of my interests. There are very few campuses that allow students to pursue two completely different topics of interest at the same time. The possibility to enter a seminar from the first year gives a great opportunity to those who want to take advantage of it, which is unique to SFC. There are really no limitations for people who want to push themselves. The people in my seminar are all hard workers, which pushes me to focus on my research and aim higher. They are always willing to help me out with my study too. For everyone here it is really not about grades, it is purely love of research. There are also excellent resources in terms of the study materials available. It is a great environment to work in. I expect that studying economics will deepen my understanding of current affairs and help me to better analyze the news, rather than simply taking the word of journalists. However, it is the IT and quantum communications aspects of my study that I expect to be most useful in finding an interesting job after graduation. Currently I am implementing a network simulator for computer networks, which I then plan to extend to explore the potential benefits to society of quantum communications, simulating qubits in a bell-state placed on the edges of a network, to enable communication with better efficiency and enhanced security. At this time, all of the work is theoretical, and so we are finding out efficient algorithms to be able to use the quantum technology when a quantum computer can finally be realized. And the technology is not only applicable to short distance communications already tests of quantum communication have been successfully achieved at distances exceeding 100km, and the quantum entanglement can even happen at a distance.

My main passion is programming, and here in the Aqua (Advancing Quantum Architecture) seminar we are using absolutely cutting edge technology. It gives me tremendous satisfaction being able to work on an area so new that almost nobody has worked on it before. In addition, there are a lot of visitors from businesses coming to the campus, and sometimes this can result in business opportunities. I have had an opportunity to work as a mentor, teaching kids programming and debugging a simple application for kids, as a part time job that came out of a meeting on the campus.

Note: Titles, affiliations, student years, etc. indicated for individuals are accurate at the time of January 2015.