  With the recent advancements and developments in quantum technologies, the
emerging field of quantum communication and networking has gained the attention
of the researchers. Owing to the unique properties of quantum mechanics, viz.,
quantum superposition and entanglement, this new area of quantum communication
has shown potential to replace modernday communication technologies. The
enhanced security and high information sharing ability using principles of
quantum mechanics has encouraged networking engineers and physicists to develop
this technology for next generation wireless systems. However, a conceptual
bridge between the fundamentals of quantum mechanics, photonics and the
deployability of a quantum communication infrastructure is not well founded in
the current literature. This paper aims to fill this gap by merging the
theoretical concepts from quantum physics to the engineering and computing
perspectives of quantum technology. This paper builds the fundamental concepts
required for understanding quantum communication, reviews the key concepts and
demonstrates how these concepts can be leveraged for accomplishing successful
communication. The paper delves into implementation advancements for executing
quantum communication protocols, explaining how hardware implementation enables
the achievement of all basic quantum computing operations. Finally, the paper
provides a comprehensive and critical review of the state-of-the-art
advancements in the field of quantum communication and quantum internet; and
points out the recent trends, challenges and open problems for the real-world
realization of next generation networking systems.
