The study of the free-space distribution of quantum correlations is necessary for any future application of quantum and classical communication aiming to connect two remote locations. Here we study the propagation of a coherent laser beam over 143~km (between Tenerife and La Palma Islands of the Canary archipelagos). By attenuating the beam we also studied the propagation at the single photon level. We investigated the statistic of arrival of the incoming photons and the scintillation of the beam. From the analysis of the data, we propose the exploitation of turbulence to improve the signal to noise ratio of the signal.

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Innovative chips based on palladium thin films deposited on plastic substrates have been tested in the Kretschmann surface plasmon resonance (SPR) configuration. The new chips combine the advantages of a plastic support that is interesting and commercially appealing and the physical properties of palladium, showing inverted surface plasmon resonance (ISPR). The detection of DNA chains has been selected as the target of the experiment, since it can be applied to several medical early diagnostic tools, such as different biomarkers of cancers or cystic fibrosis. The results are encouraging for the use of palladium in SPR-based sensors of interest for both the advancement of biodevices and the development of hydrogen sensors.

We present the results of a feasibility study on the application of optical quantum communication links to a global navigation satellite system (GNSS) network with reference to the Galileo architecture. As a particularly relevant case, we derive specifications for an inter-satellite quantum key distribution (QKD) network and evaluate its expected performance in terms of achievable key lengths.