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Physical Review Letters

Single-Photon Interference in Sidebands of Phase-Modulated Light for Quantum Cryptography

Jean-Marc Mérolla, Yuri T. Mazurenko, J.-P. Goedgebuer, William T. Rhodes

Published Feb 22, 1999• 124 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We report single-photon interference in the sidebands of modulated light. The relative phase of interacting quantum states is reliably controlled by the phase of a low-frequency modulating signal. We show how this type of interference can be used to build a robust system for quantum cryptography. An experiment was implemented at 1540 nm, over a 20-km-long standard single-mode fiber, using a germanium singlephoton avalanche photodiode.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.82.1656

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We report single-photon interference in the sidebands of modulated light. The relative phase of interacting quantum states is reliably controlled by the phase of a low-frequency modulating signal. We show how this type of interference can be used to build a robust system for quantum cryptography. An experiment was implemented at 1540 nm, over a 20-km-long standard single-mode fiber, using a germanium singlephoton avalanche photodiode.
We report a particular implementation of a quantum cryptographic device operating at 1540 nm wavelength and involving interference between phase-modulated sidebands produced by a pair of phase modulators in the transmitting and receiving modules. The principle of operation is described in terms of both classical and quantum optics. The method has been demonstrated experimentally using a strong- attenuated semiconductor laser diode. Single photon interference has been obtained with a fringe visibility greater than 90%, including that the system can be used for quantum key distribution.
We introduce a stable, long-distance single- photon Sagnac interferometer, which has a balanced configuration to efficiently compensate phase drift caused by change of the fiber-optic path. By using time-division phase modulation, single-photon interference was realized at 1550 nm in a 5-km-long as well as 27-km-long Sagnac fiber loops, with a fringe visibility higher than 90% and long-term stability. The stable performance of the single-photon interference indicated that the time-division phase-modulated Sag- nac interferometer might readily lead to practical applications in single-photon routing and quantum cryptography.
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