The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is really living up to its name on this one, giving Raytheon BBN $2.1 million for some seriously advanced research. The Cambridge-based deep thinkers will put the funds into two projects, both of which will use a feature of quantum physics known as quantum entanglement and both applied to using quantum-entangled light.

In the first project, given the tasty name of PIECOMM (Photon Information Efficient Communications), Raytheon BBN will try to use quantum physics to reach the limit of data density that can be packed into a stream of light. In a press release about the funding, Raytheon BBN says the applications for such communications could be in “free space optical communication links, including far-field links used in deep space.” Fire up the subspace radio, Lt. Uhura!

The second project hints at the kind of data that might be sent over that crazy-dense laser link. FINESSE (Fundamental Information Capacity of Electromagnetism with Squeezing and Spatial Entanglement) aims to create the ultimate imaging technology, using quantum states of light that don’t normally exist. And that gets to the real science fiction aspect of the projects – the potential uses of the quantum entanglement that will be at their hearts.

With quantum entangled light, each photon is connected at a quantum level to a photon in a second stream of light. If any change happens to the first particle, that change is reflected in the second particle. Because of that, any possible tampering – including simply looking at the first particle – will be known because it will happen to the second particle as well. That is a key to the super encryption, because any tampering could be made to change or destroy the data. But the real Star Trek item here is that the change in the light streams will occur in both at the same time, no matter how far apart they have become.