Compound semiconductor producer CST Global Ltd. is leading the GaSb/GaAs Quantum Ring Single-Photon LED (QR-SPLED) project, which seeks to mass produce low-cost, single-photon LEDs. The technology is critical for the development of commercially viable, next-generation, intrinsic, network security. Manus Hayne at Lancaster University is the project’s academic partner. “To successfully produce next-generation, secure networks, we must first mass-produce low-cost, single-photon, LED sources,” said Thomas Slight, project lead and research engineer at CST Global. “They provide two enabling security elements. The first being that the single-photon LED can transmit unique key exchange encryption and decryption data within each data packet, making it impossible to hack. The second being that any attempt to measure or eavesdrop on communications is immediately detected and the communication terminated.” The QR-SPLED project is U.K. government-funded through Innovate UK and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council in the framework of the UK National Quantum Technologies Program.