Quantum communications represent the most fundamental level of physical exchange between distant interlocutors. At the heart of these there is the encoding of the quantum state, that use one or mode degrees of freedom of the electromagnetic field or, in the corpuscular view, the single photons. In this talk, advances will be presented both on the type of degrees of freedom and on the type of encoding, which allow to achieve advanced quantum communications both from the point of view of tests on the foundations of quantum physics and on the applications.

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Short Bio: Prof. Paolo Villoresi is Full Professor of Experimental Physics at the University of Padua and Director of the Padua Quantum Technologies Research Center. He is a pioneer in space-based quantum communications, leading the first demonstration of single-photon exchange between space and Earth and subsequent landmark experiments in satellite quantum communication. Founder of the QuantumFuture research group, his work spans quantum optics, secure communications, and quantum information protocols. He has authored over 300 scientific publications and holds multiple industrial patents in quantum technologies.