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Chinese Optics Letters

Practical high-speed light source for decoy-state quantum key distribution

杜海彬, 梁焰, 张盛祥, 陈修亮, Zhao Jie Lin, Chang He, 曾和平

Published Jan 1, 2014• 0 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

High-speed light source is realized for decoy-state quantum key distribution(QKD) at telecom wavelength of 1.55 μm. By implementing two different electrical pulses together and triggering with 100 MHz pseudorandom number to drive the laser diode, the signal-state and the decoy-state pulses are prepared with identical pulse duration of 25 ps and similar spectral characteristics, avoiding the eavesdropper’s attack by temporal and spectral analysis. The intensity fluctuation of the light source is quantified to satisfy the practical decoy-state QKD with random intensity error. The characteristics of the light source are analyzed with a high-speed single-photon detector.

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High-speed light source is realized for decoy-state quantum key distribution(QKD) at telecom wavelength of 1.55 μm. By implementing two different electrical pulses together and triggering with 100 MHz pseudorandom number to drive the laser diode, the signal-state and the decoy-state pulses are prepared with identical pulse duration of 25 ps and similar spectral characteristics, avoiding the eavesdropper’s attack by temporal and spectral analysis. The intensity fluctuation of the light source is quantified to satisfy the practical decoy-state QKD with random intensity error. The characteristics of the light source are analyzed with a high-speed single-photon detector.
High-speed light source is realized for decoy-state quantum key distribution (QKD) at telecom wavelength of 1.55 µm.By implementing two different electrical pulses together and triggering with 100 MHz pseudorandom number to drive the laser diode, the signal-state and the decoy-state pulses are prepared with identical pulse duration of 25 ps and similar spectral characteristics, avoiding the eavesdropper's attack by temporal and spectral analysis.The intensity fluctuation of the light source is quantified to satisfy the practical decoy-state QKD with random intensity error.The characteristics of the light source are analyzed with a high-speed single-photon detector.
Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) provides Alice and Bob with a secure key to prevent third-party eavesdropping. Due to the lack of an ideal single-photon source, weak coherent light sources are widely used. The decoy state method can make up for the security loophole brought by weak coherent light sources - photon number splitting attack (PNS). The specific method of decoy state quantum key distribution is to send light pulses of different intensity levels. Taking the three-intensity decoy state method as an example, one is a signal state with an average photon number of u; one is a decoy state with an average photon number of d; and one is a vacuum state with an average photon number of v. Even if the eavesdropper is more powerful, he cannot distinguish which state the pulse comes from. Therefore, the accuracy of the light pulse intensity is crucial to the security of decoy state quantum key distribution [1] .
Decoy-state quantum key distribution (QKD) requires information about the photon number distribution of the light sources. The photon number distribution of weak coherent photon sources has been assumed to follow a Poisson distribution. However, it is not yet clear whether picosecond laser pulses, used in high-speed QKD systems, satisfy this assumption due to the significant and rapid changes in carrier density and photon density in the laser cavity. It is necessary to establish a method to experimentally evaluate the photon number distribution of laser pulses with a duration of less than 100 ps. We have implemented three methods to identify a suitable approach for evaluating light sources in quantum key distribution systems. Our findings indicate that all three methods conclude that the photon numbers of the gain-switching laser pulse are consistent with a Poisson distribution. We then compared these methods based on their accuracy of photon number probability and ease of implementation. These considerations will establish a method suitable for the security certification of high-speed quantum key distributed devices.
Phase randomization is essential for the security of practical decoy-state quantum key distribution (QKD) systems. Commonly, implementations rely on laser sources which are either actively phase-randomized, or gain-switched. However, at high repetition rates these show correlations, which can ultimately compromise security and performance. We present a 1.25 GHz phase-randomized QKD source based on a super-luminescent light emitting diode (SLED) operating in the C-band as a compact and cost-effective alternative. The source generates ∼100\sim100∼100 ps optical pulses with 400400400 ps pulse-to-pulse separation, compatible with high-speed time-bin encoding. Interferometric measurements demonstrate >99%>99\%>99% visibility between adjacent time bins, confirming strong first-order coherence within the same quantum signals, while the spontaneous-emission-driven nature of the SLED ensures intrinsic global phase randomization between adjacent signals. This work establishes a scalable SLED-based platform for high-speed prepare-and-measure QKD systems.
The decoy-state method serves as a cornerstone for practical quantum key distribution (QKD) with inherent immunity to photon-number-splitting attacks. Leveraging optical injection locking, we propose a directly modulated light source with a scheme that simultaneously generates intensity- and phase-modulated signals without external modulators. Removing external modulators eliminates modulator-related side-channel vulnerabilities, fundamentally enhancing QKD security. Integrated into a high-speed phase-encoding BB84 system with optimized one-decoy protocol and finite-size analysis, our system achieves positive key rates up to 20 dB channel loss (100 km fiber) with commercial InGaAs single-photon detectors, reducing transmitter complexity while ensuring security for practical QKD applications.
Decoy states have been proven to be a very useful method for significantly enhancing the performance of quantum key distribution systems with practical light sources. Although active modulation of the intensity of the laser pulses is an effective way of preparing decoy states in principle, in practice passive preparation might be desirable in some scenarios. Typical passive schemes involve parametric down-conversion. More recently, it has been shown that phase-randomized weak coherent pulses (WCP) can also be used for the same purpose [M. Curty et al., Opt. Lett. 34, 3238 (2009).] This proposal requires only linear optics together with a simple threshold photon detector, which shows the practical feasibility of the method. Most importantly, the resulting secret key rate is comparable to the one delivered by an active decoy-state setup with an infinite number of decoy settings. In this article we extend these results, now showing specifically the analysis for other practical scenarios with different light sources and photodetectors. In particular, we consider sources emitting thermal states, phase-randomized WCP, and strong coherent light in combination with several types of photodetectors, like, for instance, threshold photon detectors, photon number resolving detectors, and classical photodetectors. Our analysis includes as well the effect that detection inefficiencies and noise in the form of dark counts shown by current threshold detectors might have on the final secret key rate. Moreover, we provide estimations on the effects that statistical fluctuations due to a finite data size can have in practical implementations.