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IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics

Quantum Key Distribution Using Spin Wave–Optical Interactions

Pradeep K Kumar, Anil Prabhakar

Published Sep 8, 2010• 6 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We propose the use of spin wave–optical interactions to implement the BB84 and B92 quantum key distribution (QKD) protocols. Spin waves couple the transverse magnetic (TM) and transverse electric (TE) optical modes of a waveguide. We derive the interaction Hamiltonian to describe the coupling, and solve the resulting equations to determine the time evolution of quantized TM and TE modes. With a judicious choice of coupling coefficient, a set of four nonorthogonal states-formally equivalent to the set of polarization states of a single photon-can be generated. These states form a conjugate basis suitable as a QKD basis set. The proposed scheme can mitigate any medium-induced polarization fluctuations. The spin wave–optical interactions can be used to implement the BB84 protocol using frequency-coded coherent optical states.

DOI
10.1109/jqe.2010.2052914

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We propose the use of spin wave–optical interactions to implement the BB84 and B92 quantum key distribution (QKD) protocols. Spin waves couple the transverse magnetic (TM) and transverse electric (TE) optical modes of a waveguide. We derive the interaction Hamiltonian to describe the coupling, and solve the resulting equations to determine the time evolution of quantized TM and TE modes. With a judicious choice of coupling coefficient, a set of four nonorthogonal states-formally equivalent to the set of polarization states of a single photon-can be generated. These states form a conjugate basis suitable as a QKD basis set. The proposed scheme can mitigate any medium-induced polarization fluctuations. The spin wave–optical interactions can be used to implement the BB84 protocol using frequency-coded coherent optical states.
We describe a frequency-coded scheme to implement the BB84 quantum key distribution protocol using spin wave (SW)-optical interactions. The interaction of SWs with optical coherent states allows TE↔TM mode conversion with simultaneous change of frequency and polarization while introducing a phase difference between the two modes. To implement the BB84 protocol, key bits are encoded as relative phases between the TE and TM modes. The proposed scheme offers a higher key rate, due to a modulation frequency as high as 25 GHz, which also relaxes the specifications on the optical filter at the receiver. In addition, SW-optical interactions yield the added security of truly single-sideband modulation.
We propose an implementation of quantum key distribution (QKD) protocol using magnon-photon interactions in dielectric waveguides. Starting from the Hamiltonian of spin wave-optical interactions in a symmetric dielectric waveguide, we derive the single-photon transformations that allow us to define two non-orthogonal basis sets, which are isomorphic to polarization basis of single-photon. Implementation of the BB84 and B92 protocols is then straightforward. The principal advantage of our scheme is the higher quantum bit error rate (QBER) (37.5%) compared to polarization-coded scheme (25%) for simple intercept/resend attack. This considerably relaxes the specifications of optical components. Finally, we consider the effect of low conversion efficiency on QBER.
We discuss possible modulation schemes to implement BB84 and B92 quantum key distribution protocols using frequency-coding method. We derive time evolution of quantum states of light in a Mach-Zehnder interferometer based optical intensity modulator. We then show that phase modulator-phase modulator (PM-PM) combination can be used to implement the B92 protocol and intensity modulator-intensity modulator (IM-IM) combination can be used to implement the BB84 protocol. However, the combinations-PM-IM or IM-PM-cannot be used to implement BB84 and B92 protocols using frequency-coding method. Finally, we discuss the security of frequency-coded implementation of B92 protocol.
Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) provides a secure way of generating shared cryptographic keys between a sender (Alice) and a receiver (Bob). The original BB84 protocol uses a two-dimensional polarization basis, limiting the information content of a single photon to 1 bit. Using the transverse position of single photons as one basis and the Fourier space as a second basis, one can construct a pair of mutually unbiased higher-dimensional bases. This improves not only the security of the protocol, but also the key generation rate. We present experimental results with a Spatial-Light-Modulator-based encoding scheme employing two nearly orthogonal alphabets with on the order of 103symbols each and an information content of about 10 bit.
We propose a novel scheme to implement the BB84 quantum key distribution (QKD) protocol in optical fibers based on a quantum frequency-translation (QFT) process. Unlike conventional QKD systems, which rely on photon polarization/phase to encode qubits, our proposal utilizes photons of different frequencies. Qubits are thus expected to reach longer propagation distances due to the photon frequency state being more robust against mechanical and/or thermal fluctuations of the transmitting medium. Finally, we put forth an extension to a security-enhanced four-character-alphabet (qu-quarts) QKD scheme.
Entanglement is an essential ingredient in many quantum communication protocols. In particular, entanglement can be exploited in quantum key distribution (QKD) to generate two correlated random bit strings whose randomness is guaranteed by the non-local property of quantum mechanics. While QKD protocols based on polarization and time-bin entanglement have been experimentally realized, secure key distribution based on frequency-bin entangled photon sources have not yet been demonstrated. We experimentally implement the BBM92 protocol using a frequency-bin encoded entangled state, generated by an integrated source of photon pairs in a silicon photonic chip. We execute a passive basis selection scheme and simultaneously record sixteen projective measurements over two mutually unbiased basis sets. An adaptive rotation of the measurement base is introduced to compensate the random relative phase fluctuation b e tween t h e t w o 1 5 -GHz-spaced frequency bins in a fiber l o op. S t able t r ansmission o ver a 2 6 k m fi be r sp oo l is de mo nstrated wi th a se cr et ke y ra te ≥ 4.5 bit/s.