Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE

Polar codes in a QKD environment

Anastase Nakassis, Alan Mink

Published May 22, 2014• 19 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Polar coding is the most recent encoding scheme in the quest for error correction codes that approaches the Shannon limit, has a simple structure, and admits fast decoders. As such, it is an interesting candidate for the quantum key distribution (QKD) protocol that normally operates at high bit error rates and requires codes that operate near the Shannon limit. This paper describes approaches that integrate Polar codes into the QKD environment and provides performance results of Polar code designs within the QKD protocol.

DOI
10.1117/12.2050919

Related papers

Flexible polar encoding for information reconciliation in QKD

Snehasis Addy, Sabyasachi Dutta, Somnath Panja +3 more

Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) enables two parties to establish a common secret key that is information-theoretically secure by transmitting random bits that are encoded as qubits and sent over a quantum channel, followed by classical information processing steps known as information reconciliation and key extraction. Transmission of information over a quantum channel introduces errors that are generally considered to be due to the adversary's tempering with the quantum channel and needs to be corrected using classical communication over an (authenticated) public channel. Commonly used error-correcting codes in the context of QKD include cascade codes, low-density parity check (LDPC) codes, and more recently polar codes. In this work, we explore the applicability of designing of a polar code encoder based on a channel reliability sequence. We show that the reliability sequence can be derived and used to design an encoder independent of the choice of decoder. We then implement our design and evaluate its performance against previous implementations of polar code encoders for QKD as well as other typical error-correcting codes. A key advantage of our approach is the modular design which decouples the encoder and decoder design and allows independent optimization of each. Our work leads to more versatile polar code-based error reconciliation in QKD systems that would result in deployment in a broader range of scenarios.

arXiv:2312.03100•Nov 30, 2023•0 citations

An Improved Polar Codes‐Based Key Reconciliation for Practical Quantum Key Distribution

Shiling Yan, Jindong Wang, Junbin Fang +2 more

Key reconciliation is important for practical Quantum key distribution (QKD) systems since it corrects the error bits in a key string by sacrificing some key bits. Therefore, its performance directly affects the secret key rate of a practical QKD system. Although key reconciliation scheme based on polar codes can achieve a high coding efficiency, the high frame error rate causes discarding key strings and decreases the secret key rate. In this paper, we fist analyze the limitation of successive cancellation decoding of polar codes, and then we propose an improved key reconciliation scheme using polar codes with successive cancellation list decoding and optimized coding structures, which can decrease the frame error probability, resulting in a higher secret key rate. Numerical results show that the proposed scheme can achieve a 12.8% higher secret key rate than the previous polar codes-based scheme with a code length of 216 bits and a quantum bit error rate of 2%. Besides, the proposed scheme is robust and it can extract secret key bits even when the quantum bit error rate reaches 10.2% with a code length of 220 bits and a coding efficiency of 90.6%.

Chinese Journal of Electronics•Mar 1, 2018•25 citations

Polar Codes for Quantum Key Distribution

Anastase Nakassis

This paper addresses the performance of polar codes in the context of the quantum key distribution (QKD) protocol. It introduces the notion of an interactive polar decoder and studies its performance. The results demonstrate that the interactive decoder is efficient in the right environment and can be used to construct good classical polar codes efficiently.

Journal of Research of the National Institute of Standards and Technology•Dec 14, 2017•7 citations

Appending Information Reconciliation for Quantum Key Distribution

Han Zhou, Bang-Ying Tang, Si-Chen Li +4 more

Information reconciliation (IR), which corrects the errors in the sifted keys, directly determines the secure key rate and the link distance of quantum key distribution (QKD) systems. In this paper, we propose an appending information reconciliation (AIR) scheme based on polar codes, which achieves high efficiency and ultralow failure probability simultaneously, by gradually disclosing the bit values of the polarized channels with high error probability. The experimental results show that the efficiency of the proposed AIR scheme is closer to the Shannon limit, compared with the state-of-the-art implemented polar-code-based IR schemes, with the overall failure probability around ${10}^{\ensuremath{-}8}$, especially when performed with smaller block sizes. Moreover, the efficiency of the proposed AIR scheme is 1.046, when the block size is 1 Gb and the quantum bit error rate of 0.02. Therefore, the proposed AIR scheme can further eradicate the performance gap between theory and implementation for QKD systems.

arXiv:2204.06971•Physical Review Applied•Oct 10, 2022•12 citations

Study on application of polar codes to information reconciliation in free-space quantum key distribution

Yuma Yamashita, Hiroyuki Endo, Shingo Fujita +3 more

Quantum key distribution (QKD) is a technology to securely share keys against any attack physically permitted, with the principle of quantum mechanics. In recent years, the satellite QKD, which employs artificial satellites as trusted mobile nodes, has been attracting attention in order to overcome the bottleneck of transmission distance. However, in the satellite QKD, quality degradation due to atmospheric effects is expected, as in ordinary satellite laser communications. Therefore, it is desirable to apply an error-correcting code (ECC) that has high error-correcting performance even under the atmospheric-induced effects to the error-correcting process of the satellite QKD. Therefore, in this paper, we examined the application of polar codes, which is known as an ECC with high error correction capability. First, in order to optimize the error correction efficiency, we propose a method to adaptively obtain an appropriate code rate for the received signal strength that changes momentarily due to atmospheric effects. Then, we compare the throughput performances with polar codes to it with low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes, with the numerical simulation assuming Bennett-Brassard 1984 protocol (BB84).

International Conference on Space Optics (ICSO)•Jun 11, 2021•0 citations

High performance error correction for quantum key distribution using polar codes

Paul Jouguet, Sébastien Kunz-Jacques

We study the use of polar codes for both discrete and continuous variables Quantum Key Distribution (QKD). Although very large blocks must be used to obtain the efficiency required by quantum key distribution, and especially continuous variables quantum key distribution, their implementation on generic x86 Central Processing Units (CPUs) is practical. Thanks to recursive decoding, they exhibit excellent decoding speed, much higher than large, irregular Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) codes implemented on similar hardware, and competitive with implementations of the same codes on high-end Graphic Processing Units (GPUs).

arXiv:1204.5882•Quantum Information and Computation•Mar 1, 2014•102 citations
Polar coding is the most recent encoding scheme in the quest for error correction codes that approaches the Shannon limit, has a simple structure, and admits fast decoders. As such, it is an interesting candidate for the quantum key distribution (QKD) protocol that normally operates at high bit error rates and requires codes that operate near the Shannon limit. This paper describes approaches that integrate Polar codes into the QKD environment and provides performance results of Polar code designs within the QKD protocol.
Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) enables two parties to establish a common secret key that is information-theoretically secure by transmitting random bits that are encoded as qubits and sent over a quantum channel, followed by classical information processing steps known as information reconciliation and key extraction. Transmission of information over a quantum channel introduces errors that are generally considered to be due to the adversary's tempering with the quantum channel and needs to be corrected using classical communication over an (authenticated) public channel. Commonly used error-correcting codes in the context of QKD include cascade codes, low-density parity check (LDPC) codes, and more recently polar codes. In this work, we explore the applicability of designing of a polar code encoder based on a channel reliability sequence. We show that the reliability sequence can be derived and used to design an encoder independent of the choice of decoder. We then implement our design and evaluate its performance against previous implementations of polar code encoders for QKD as well as other typical error-correcting codes. A key advantage of our approach is the modular design which decouples the encoder and decoder design and allows independent optimization of each. Our work leads to more versatile polar code-based error reconciliation in QKD systems that would result in deployment in a broader range of scenarios.
Key reconciliation is important for practical Quantum key distribution (QKD) systems since it corrects the error bits in a key string by sacrificing some key bits. Therefore, its performance directly affects the secret key rate of a practical QKD system. Although key reconciliation scheme based on polar codes can achieve a high coding efficiency, the high frame error rate causes discarding key strings and decreases the secret key rate. In this paper, we fist analyze the limitation of successive cancellation decoding of polar codes, and then we propose an improved key reconciliation scheme using polar codes with successive cancellation list decoding and optimized coding structures, which can decrease the frame error probability, resulting in a higher secret key rate. Numerical results show that the proposed scheme can achieve a 12.8% higher secret key rate than the previous polar codes-based scheme with a code length of 216 bits and a quantum bit error rate of 2%. Besides, the proposed scheme is robust and it can extract secret key bits even when the quantum bit error rate reaches 10.2% with a code length of 220 bits and a coding efficiency of 90.6%.
Information reconciliation (IR), which corrects the errors in the sifted keys, directly determines the secure key rate and the link distance of quantum key distribution (QKD) systems. In this paper, we propose an appending information reconciliation (AIR) scheme based on polar codes, which achieves high efficiency and ultralow failure probability simultaneously, by gradually disclosing the bit values of the polarized channels with high error probability. The experimental results show that the efficiency of the proposed AIR scheme is closer to the Shannon limit, compared with the state-of-the-art implemented polar-code-based IR schemes, with the overall failure probability around ${10}^{\ensuremath{-}8}$, especially when performed with smaller block sizes. Moreover, the efficiency of the proposed AIR scheme is 1.046, when the block size is 1 Gb and the quantum bit error rate of 0.02. Therefore, the proposed AIR scheme can further eradicate the performance gap between theory and implementation for QKD systems.
Quantum key distribution (QKD) is a technology to securely share keys against any attack physically permitted, with the principle of quantum mechanics. In recent years, the satellite QKD, which employs artificial satellites as trusted mobile nodes, has been attracting attention in order to overcome the bottleneck of transmission distance. However, in the satellite QKD, quality degradation due to atmospheric effects is expected, as in ordinary satellite laser communications. Therefore, it is desirable to apply an error-correcting code (ECC) that has high error-correcting performance even under the atmospheric-induced effects to the error-correcting process of the satellite QKD. Therefore, in this paper, we examined the application of polar codes, which is known as an ECC with high error correction capability. First, in order to optimize the error correction efficiency, we propose a method to adaptively obtain an appropriate code rate for the received signal strength that changes momentarily due to atmospheric effects. Then, we compare the throughput performances with polar codes to it with low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes, with the numerical simulation assuming Bennett-Brassard 1984 protocol (BB84).
We study the use of polar codes for both discrete and continuous variables Quantum Key Distribution (QKD). Although very large blocks must be used to obtain the efficiency required by quantum key distribution, and especially continuous variables quantum key distribution, their implementation on generic x86 Central Processing Units (CPUs) is practical. Thanks to recursive decoding, they exhibit excellent decoding speed, much higher than large, irregular Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) codes implemented on similar hardware, and competitive with implementations of the same codes on high-end Graphic Processing Units (GPUs).