Examination of China’s performance and thematic evolution in quantum cryptography research using quantitative and computational techniques

Abstract

This study performed two phases of analysis to shed light on the performance and thematic evolution of China’s quantum cryptography (QC) research. First, large-scale research publication metadata derived from QC research published from 2001–2017 was used to examine the research performance of China relative to that of global peers using established quantitative and qualitative measures. Second, this study identified the thematic evolution of China’s QC research using co-word cluster network analysis, a computational science mapping technique. The results from the first phase indicate that over the past 17 years, China’s performance has evolved dramatically, placing it in a leading position. Among the most significant findings is the exponential rate at which all of China’s performance indicators (i.e., Publication Frequency, citation score, H-index) are growing. China’s H-index (a normalized indicator) has surpassed all other countries’ over the last several years. The second phase of analysis shows how China’s main research focus has shifted among several QC themes, including quantum-key-distribution, photon-optical communication, network protocols, and quantum entanglement with an emphasis on applied research. Several themes were observed across time periods (e.g., photons, quantum-key-distribution, secret-messages, quantum-optics, quantum-signatures); some themes disappeared over time (e.g., computer-networks, attack-strategies, bell-state, polarization-state), while others emerged more recently (e.g., quantum-entanglement, decoy-state, unitary-operation). Findings from the first phase of analysis provide empirical evidence that China has emerged as the global driving force in QC. Considering China is the premier driving force in global QC research, findings from the second phase of analysis provide an understanding of China’s QC research themes, which can provide clarity into how QC technologies might take shape. QC and science and technology policy researchers can also use these findings to trace previous research directions and plan future lines of research.

Bibliometric Analysis in the Field of Quantum Technology

“…The USA shows a much smaller contribution to QT 2.0 than could be expected from their otherwise leading role in science. China has a far overproportionate contribution, especially in the field of Q COMM-corroborated by its hub-like function in the topical map and confirming the findings of Olijnyk [64]. Germany can be found on the third rank of contributors with a much higher than expected share of QT 2.0 publications.…”

“…The authors were interested in the internal team structure, collaborations, and prospective development. Olijnyk [64] was interested in China's involvement in the area of quantum cryptography between 2001 and 2017 and witnessed China taking on a leading role. Dhawan et al [65] focused on the global publication output in quantum computing research between 2007 and 2016 and reported results concerning the top contributing countries very similar to ours (see Section 5.…”

Technical research innovations of the US national security system

“…They concluded that funding defensed-based research for universities decreases regional entrepreneurship activities in the short-term, however is positively related to entrepreneurship in the long-term. Together with other studies about spill-over effects from military to civilian innovations and research (Acosta, Coronado, Marín, & Prats, 2013;Kas et al, 2012;Olijnyk, 2018), these findings indicate that defense-related funding impacts the way scientific research is conducted and the development of technological innovations.…”

Bibliometric analysis of topic structure in quantum computation and quantum algorithm research

“…With the growing interest in the QIST, there are several works to perform quantitative analyses on the state of the art of the QIST [9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16]. These works clarified that i) the number of publications in the QIST is rapidly growing, ii) the leading countries of the QIST research are the US and China, and iii) Institutions in Europe have more collaborative works than those in the other countries.…”

“…These works clarified that i) the number of publications in the QIST is rapidly growing, ii) the leading countries of the QIST research are the US and China, and iii) Institutions in Europe have more collaborative works than those in the other countries. In addition to these, more specific analyses have been conducted in quantum cryptography [10] and quantum machine learning [14]. The collaboration network in quantum information authors is found to be a small-world network [16].…”