We study the decoy-state measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution using heralded single-photon sources, and demonstrate that our new scheme of using heralded single-photon sources can give a better performance comparing with various schemes.
We study decoy-state measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution using heralded single-photon sources. This has the advantage that the observed error rate in the X basis is at higher order and not so large. We calculate the key rate and transmission distance for two cases: one using only triggered events, and the other using both triggered and nontriggered events. We compare the key rates of various protocols and find that our scheme using triggered and nontriggered events can give a higher key rate and a longer secure distance. Moreover, we also show the different behavior of our scheme when using different heralded single-photon sources, i.e., in Poisson or thermal distributions. We demonstrate that the former can generate a higher secure key rate than the latter and can thus work more efficiently in practical quantum key distributions.
The protocol of reference-frame-independent measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution has many advantages compared with other existing quantum key distribution protocols, and thus has many interesting applications in the field of quantum information. In this paper, we propose a scheme on the reference-frame-independent measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution by implementing heralded single-photon sources, where we only need to modulate pump light into two intensities (vacuum and nonvacuum). Through numerical simulations, we demonstrate that our scheme can exhibit much longer transmission distance than the standard three-intensity decoy-state measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution under a reference-frame-independent scenario.
To date, only active-decoy-state methods have been adopted in current measurement-device-independent (MDI) quantum key distribution (QKD) protocols, causing security loopholes when modulating multiple light intensities with practical devices. To solve this problem, the passive-decoy-state method will be a good choice. Until today practical passive-decoy-state MDI QKD is still missing. In this paper, based on a recently discussed structure of heralded single-photon sources, we propose a passive-decoy-state MDI QKD protocol. In present work, one does not need to modulate light sources into different intensities, but utilizes the built-in local detection events to passively generate different decoy states. Furthermore, through carrying out an appropriate mathematical method, we are able to give very precise estimations for single-photon-pair contributions. As a result, our protocol can exhibit distinct advantages compared with state-of-the-art MDI QKD schemes even when the finite-key-size effect is taken into account. Therefore, our protocol seems a promising candidate to enhance both the security and performance of MDI QKD in practical implementation.
Measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution (MDI-QKD) has been widely investigated due to its remarkable advantages on the achievable transmission distance and practical security. However, the relative low key generation rate limits its real-life implementations. In this work, we adopt the newly proposed four-intensity decoy-state scheme [Phys. Rev. A 93, 042324 (2016)] to study the performance of MDI-QKD with heralded single-photon sources (HSPS). Corresponding simulation results demonstrate that the four-intensity decoy-state scheme combining HSPS can drastically improve both the key generation rate and transmission distance in MDI-QKD, which may be very promising in future MDI-QKD systems.
Quantum cryptography has a strong security that classical cryptography cannot match, and quantum key distribution (QKD) is the most important method of quantum cryptography. Reference-frame-independent measurement-device-independent QKD (RFI-MDI-QKD) protocol can avoid the drift of the reference frame and all side channels of measurement devices. However, RFI MDI-QKD usually employs a weak coherent state (WCS) as the light source, which limits the transmission distance of secure keys. Here, by using heralded single-photon sources, we investigate an improved decoy-state RFI-MDI-QKD scheme. We perform numerical simulations for the scheme under different scenarios, such as considering the finite size and different drift angles. Compared with the scheme with WCS, our scheme can significantly improve the transmission distance of RFI-MDI-QKD.