Scientists create unbreakable code

Australian scientists believe they have developed an unbreakable information code to stop hackers, using a diamond, a kitchen microwave oven and an optical fibre.

Australian scientists believe they have developed an unbreakable information code to stop hackers, using a diamond, a kitchen microwave oven and an optical fibre.

Researchers at Melbourne University used the microwave to 'fuse' a tiny diamond, just 1/1000th of a millimetre, onto an optical fibre, which could be used to create a single photon beam of light which they say cannot be hacked.

Photons are the smallest known particles of light. Until now, scientists could not produce a single-photon beam, thereby narrowing down the stream of light used to transmit information.

'When it comes to cryptology, it's not so much of a problem to have a coded message intercepted, the problem is getting the key (to decode it),' said university research fellow James Rabeau, who developed the diamond device.

'The single-photon beam makes for an unstealable key.'

The security of information depends on the properties of light that is used to transmit data. Laser beams which are used at the moment send billions of photons, making it easy for hackers to steal some of them and break the code, said Rabeau.

The diamond device sends a stream of single photons, so that if the chain of communication is broken, the information becomes corrupted and a hacker immediately exposed to both the sender and the receiver, he said.

Only diamonds are known to create stable single-photon beams at room temperature.

Rabeau and his team have received a $2.5 million innovation grant from the Victoria state government to develop a prototype and commercialise the technology.