Covesion

Covesion makes periodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN) crystals and the nonlinear optical components built around them, including frequency doublers, optical parametric oscillators, difference-frequency mixers, and waveguide modules for generating entangled and squeezed light. Spun out of the University of Southampton's Optoelectronics Research Centre, it fabricates and polishes its own PPLN material and sells it both as bare chips and as packaged, temperature-controlled modules. Its customers are largely research groups, photonics integrators, and instrument makers rather than end users, placing it among a small handful of commercial PPLN suppliers serving quantum photonics, spectroscopy, and sensing, alongside firms such as HC Photonics.

AI-written profile · not yet reviewed · 14 October 2026

Headquarters: Southampton, United Kingdom
Founded: 2000
Status: Private

photonic

Coverage

Quantum Zeitgeist13 October 2026

European Space Agency target met, a gigahertz of entangled photons

Covesion has reported a polarization-entangled photon-pair source at 1560 nm that exceeds a 1 GHz generation rate, meeting a target set by the European Space Agency. The result addresses a key performance requirement for high-rate quantum key distribution and quantum information processing.

OutlookPlausible

This could accelerate space-based QKD by enabling low-Earth-orbit satellites to distribute secret keys at rates high enough for continuous encrypted links, provided the source survives launch and space qualification.

photonic quantum networkingCovesionEuropean Space Agency