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Title: Provably secure and high-rate quantum key distribution with time-bin qudits

Journal Article · · Science Advances

The security of conventional cryptography systems is threatened in the forthcoming era of quantum computers. Quantum key distribution (QKD) features fundamentally proven security and offers a promising option for quantum-proof cryptography solution. Although prototype QKD systems over optical fiber have been demonstrated over the years, the key generation rates remain several orders of magnitude lower than current classical communication systems. In an effort toward a commercially viable QKD system with improved key generation rates, we developed a discrete-variable QKD system based on time-bin quantum photonic states that can generate provably secure cryptographic keys at megabit-per-second rates over metropolitan distances. We use high-dimensional quantum states that transmit more than one secret bit per received photon, alleviating detector saturation effects in the superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors used in our system that feature very high detection efficiency (of more than 70%) and low timing jitter (of less than 40 ps). Our system is constructed using commercial off-the-shelf components, and the adopted protocol can be readily extended to free-space quantum channels. In conclusion, the security analysis adopted to distill the keys ensures that the demonstrated protocol is robust against coherent attacks, finite-size effects, and a broad class of experimental imperfections identified in our system.

Research Organization:
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
Grant/Contract Number:
AC05-00OR22725
OSTI ID:
1410948
Journal Information:
Science Advances, Vol. 3, Issue 11; ISSN 2375-2548
Publisher:
AAASCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 163 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (38)

Asymmetric cryptography with physical unclonable keys journal October 2019
Securing quantum key distribution systems using fewer states journal April 2018
Quantum-Key-Distribution (QKD) Networks Enabled by Software-Defined Networks (SDN) journal May 2019
Scalable cryogenic readout circuit for a superconducting nanowire single-photon detector system journal June 2018
Multidimensional quantum entanglement with large-scale integrated optics journal March 2018
Research on error-correction algorithm of high-speed QKD system based on FPGA journal March 2019
Quantum optical microcombs journal February 2019
Frequency comb single-photon interferometry journal September 2018
High-dimensional quantum teleportation under noisy environments journal December 2019
High-dimensional measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution on two-dimensional subspaces journal December 2018
Large-alphabet quantum key distribution using spatially encoded light journal December 2019
Boosting the secret key rate in a shared quantum and classical fibre communication system journal November 2019
Quantum Phase Estimation with Time‐Frequency Qudits in a Single Photon journal October 2019
High‐Dimensional Quantum Communication: Benefits, Progress, and Future Challenges journal October 2019
Large-alphabet encoding for higher-rate quantum key distribution journal January 2019
Reconfigurable generation and measurement of mutually unbiased bases for time-bin qudits journal March 2018
High-dimensional optical quantum logic in large operational spaces journal July 2019
A 5 GHz and 7.5 V multi-amplitude modulator driving circuit for practical high-speed quantum key distribution journal February 2020
All-fiber self-compensating polarization encoder for quantum key distribution journal January 2019
Quantifying entanglement in a 68-billion-dimensional quantum state space journal June 2019
Experimental demonstration of the DPTS QKD protocol over a 170 km fiber link journal January 2019
Chau–Wang–Wong17 scheme is experimentally more feasible than the six-state scheme journal March 2019
Generation of mutually unbiased bases for 4D-QKD with structured photons via LNOI photonic wire journal August 2018
Scalable high-rate, high-dimensional time-bin encoding quantum key distribution journal June 2019
Scalable Cryogenic Read-out Circuit for a Superconducting Nanowire Single-Photon Detector System text January 2017
Securing quantum key distribution systems using fewer states text January 2018
Reconfigurable generation and measurement of mutually unbiased bases for time-bin qudits text January 2018
Asymmetric Cryptography with Physical Unclonable Keys text January 2018
Quantifying entanglement in a 68-billion dimensional quantum state space text January 2018
High-dimensional optical quantum logic in large operational spaces text January 2018
High dimensional measurement device independent quantum key distribution on two dimensional subspaces text January 2018
Experimental demonstration of the DPTS QKD protocol over a 170 km fiber link text January 2019
Sub-ns timing accuracy for satellite quantum communications text January 2019
All-fiber self-compensating polarization encoder for Quantum Key Distribution text January 2019
Genuine time-bin-encoded quantum key distribution over a turbulent depolarizing free-space channel text January 2019
Quantum Phase Estimation with Time-Frequency Qudits in a Single Photon text January 2019
High-dimensional quantum communication: benefits, progress, and future challenges text January 2019
Boosting the secret key rate in a shared quantum and classical fibre communication system text January 2019