19 - 20 November, 2024
M Shed Princes Wharf
Bristol, United Kingdom
Events
John Rarity
Professor, University of Bristol
About the Speaker
John G. Rarity FRS is a leading expert in quantum technologies at the University of Bristol, where he has been a professor since January 1, 2003. His pioneering work in quantum optics, quantum cryptography, and quantum communication focuses on single photons and entanglement. Rarity is a key member of the Quantum Engineering Technologies Laboratory (QET Labs) and the Photonics and Quantum group at Bristol.
Rarity earned his BSc from the University of Sheffield and his PhD from the Royal Military College of Science in 1984, where he studied light scattering from aggregating colloidal dispersions. Before Bristol, he was a physicist at the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA), part of the UK's Ministry of Defence. At DERA, he demonstrated quantum interference and non-locality over large distances, including a violation of Bell's Inequality over 4 km of optical fiber in 1994 and established world records in free-space secure quantum key distribution (QKD), over 1.9 km in 1998 and 23.8 km in 2002.
At Bristol, Rarity's group has continued to work on long range QKD initiating feasibility studies for quantum communications to space and collaborating on the notable 144 km free-space quantum key distribution experiment between Tenerife and La Palma in 2007. He also introduced the concept of lightweight low cost consumer QKD developing handheld systems that have since been adapted for Cube satellite QKD demonstrations. His interest in quantum sensing and range finding has led on to the development of remote gas sensing systems and the launch of QLM a company developing Methane and other greenhouse gas remote sensing solutions. He has authored over 200 refereed papers and edited several summer school and workshop proceedings and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2015.
