This is an overview of the state of the art for practical quantum key distribution (QKD) as of March 2015. It is written by a non-expert for non-experts. Additions and corrections are welcome.
This book explores both the state of the art and the latest developments in QKD. It describes the fundamental concepts and practical aspects of QKD from a viewpoint of information security and quantum channel efficiency improvement. The purpose of this book is to extend and update the knowledge of the readers in the dynamically changing field of QKD. The authors attempt to present in detail their results of scientific research, which is divided into two sections - Modern QKD Technologies and Quantum Channel Construction. It will be useful for researchers, engineers, graduates, and doctoral students working in quantum cryptography and information security-related areas.
Advancement in quantum networking is becoming increasingly more sophisticated, with some arguing that a working quantum network may be reached by 2030. Just how these networks can and will come to be is still a work in progress, including how communications within those networks will be secured. While debates about the development of quantum networking often focus on technical specifications, less is written about their social impacts and the myriad of ways individuals can engage in conversations about quantum technologies, especially in non-technical ways. Spaces for legal, humanist or behavioral scholars to weigh in on the impacts of this emerging capability do exist, and using the example of criticism of the quantum protocol quantum key distribution (QKD), this paper illustrates five entry points for non-technical experts to help technical, practical, and scholarly communities prepare for the anticipated quantum revolution. Selecting QKD as an area of critique was chosen due to its established position as an application of quantum properties that reaches beyond theoretical applications.
For secure practical systems, quantum key distribution (QKD) must provide high key rates over long distances. Time-entanglement-based QKD promises to increase the secret key rate and distribution distances compared to other QKD implementations. This article describes the major steps in QKD protocols, focusing on the nascent QKD technology based on high-dimensional time-bin entangled photons. We overview state-of-the-art from the information and coding theory perspective. In particular, we discuss the key rate loss due to single-photon detector imperfections. We hope the open questions posed and discussed in this paper will inspire information and coding theorists to contribute to and impact fledgling quantum applications and influence future quantum communication systems.