Quantum Cryptography Research: A Scientometric Assessment of Global Publications during 1992-2019

ABSTRACT

The study examines global “Quantum Cryptography” research on a set of quantitative and qualitative metrics to understand the status of research in the subject at global, national, institutional, and individual level. The analysis is based on publications data in the subject comprising a total of 10801 publications as indexed in the Scopus database covering the period 1992–2020. The study provides a window to most productive countries, research organizations and authors in the subject, to most popular broad subject areas in research, to top modes of research communication, and in addition it describes the characteristics of highly cited papers. The study maps the most productive countries, organizations, authors, and keywords in the context of collaborative research. The quantum cryptography research registered a 24.76% annual average growth, accrued an average of 23.01 citations per paper (CPP) since their publication, and it contributed a 4.03% of its output as highly cited papers, with an average of 305.46 citations per paper since their publication. Scholarly journals accounted for a 59.61% global publications share. Nearly 29% of the total output on “Quantum Cryptography” resulted from projects funded by 100+ national and international funding agencies.

KEYWORDS:

• Quantum cryptography
• global publications
• scientometrics
• bibliometrics