science

In the long term, this work could play a similar role in digital security as atomic clocks do for timekeeping: a physically certified source of randomness that other systems can rely on. Possible applications range from the encryption of sensitive communications and digital identities to public randomness services for lotteries and blockchain applications.

Such methods could also become crucial for quantum-secure communications systems. This is because even the strongest cryptographic methods are only as secure as the random numbers on which they are based: the better the randomness, the more robust the encryption—if it is weak, the entire system becomes vulnerable.