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arXiv:1801.04418 · Physical Review Letters

Satellite-Relayed Intercontinental Quantum Network

Sheng‐Kai Liao, Wenqi Cai, Johannes Handsteiner, Bo Liu, Juan Yin, Liang Zhang, Dominik Rauch, Matthias Fink, Ji-Gang Ren, Wei-Yue Liu, Yang Li, Qi Shen, Yuan Wen Cao, Fengzhi Li, Jianfeng Wang, Yongmei Huang, Lei Deng, Tao Xi, Lu Ma, Tai Hu, Li Li, Nai-Le Liu, Franz Koidl, Peiyuan Wang, Yu-Ao Chen, Xiang‐Bin Wang, Michael A. Steindorfer, Georg Kirchner, Chao‐Yang Lu, Rong Shu, Rupert Ursin, Thomas Scheidl, Cheng-Zhi Peng, Jianyu Wang, Anton Zeilinger, Jian-Wei Pan

Published Jan 19, 2018• 794 citations

Abstract

We perform decoy-state quantum key distribution between a low-Earth-orbit satellite and multiple ground stations located in Xinglong, Nanshan, and Graz, which establish satellite-to-ground secure keys with ∼kHz rate per passage of the satellite Micius over a ground station. The satellite thus establishes a secure key between itself and, say, Xinglong, and another key between itself and, say, Graz. Then, upon request from the ground command, Micius acts as a trusted relay. It performs bitwise exclusive or operations between the two keys and relays the result to one of the ground stations. That way, a secret key is created between China and Europe at locations separated by 7600 km on Earth. These keys are then used for intercontinental quantum-secured communication. This was, on the one hand, the transmission of images in a one-time pad configuration from China to Austria as well as from Austria to China. Also, a video conference was performed between the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which also included a 280 km optical ground connection between Xinglong and Beijing. Our work clearly confirms the Micius satellite as a robust platform for quantum key distribution with different ground stations on Earth, and points towards an efficient solution for an ultralong-distance global quantum network.

DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.120.030501

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