Experimental investigation of practical unforgeable quantum money

Understand

Wiesner's unforgeable quantum money scheme is widely celebrated as the first quantum information application.

• Based on the no-cloning property of quantum mechanics, this scheme allows for the creation of credit cards used in authenticated transactions offering security guarantees impossible to achieve by classical means.
• However, despite its central role in quantum cryptography, its experimental implementation has remained elusive because of the lack of quantum memories and of practical verification techniques.
• Here, we experimentally implement a quantum money protocol relying on classical verification that rigorously satisfies the security condition for unforgeability.