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

Practical implementation of continuous-variable quantum key distribution

Takuya Hirano, Atsushi Shimoguchi, Kazuya Shirasaki, Shingo Tokunaga, Atsushi Furuki, Yohei Kawamoto, Ryo Namiki

Published May 5, 2006• 3 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We report "plug & play" and free-space implementations of continuous-variable (CV) quantum key distribution (QKD). In a CV QKD system, a homodyne detector is used to detect a weak signal light by superposing the signal with a local oscillator (LO) whose intensity is much stronger than the signal. In conventional "plug & play" (or auto compensating) systems, two pulses traverse an identical optical path and the intensities of them become equal. In our experiment we use an acousto-optic modulator and have successfully controlled the intensities of the signal and the LO. For free-space implementation of CV QKD the stability of the double interferometer is a crucial problem. We have separated the signal and LO in time longer than the coherence time of the pulse by exploiting the birefringence of EOM crystals. In this setup the signal and LO traverse along the same ray path, so the stability of the interferometer is greatly improved.

DOI
10.1117/12.665460

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We report "plug & play" and free-space implementations of continuous-variable (CV) quantum key distribution (QKD). In a CV QKD system, a homodyne detector is used to detect a weak signal light by superposing the signal with a local oscillator (LO) whose intensity is much stronger than the signal. In conventional "plug & play" (or auto compensating) systems, two pulses traverse an identical optical path and the intensities of them become equal. In our experiment we use an acousto-optic modulator and have successfully controlled the intensities of the signal and the LO. For free-space implementation of CV QKD the stability of the double interferometer is a crucial problem. We have separated the signal and LO in time longer than the coherence time of the pulse by exploiting the birefringence of EOM crystals. In this setup the signal and LO traverse along the same ray path, so the stability of the interferometer is greatly improved.
Free-space quantum key distribution (QKD) is expected to realized a global system for QKD based on a network of ground to satellite or satellite to satellite, and thus to extend the distance limit and the utility of QKD method (Schmitt-Manderbach et al., 2007). We report an experimental demonstration of free-space continuous-variable QKD (CV-QKD). We use a 1.55 m-wavelength pulsed diode laser and a pulsed homodyne detector. We have demonstrated free-space CV-QKD using a novel collinear interferometer. Our result shows the feasibility of practical free-space CV-QKD. We believe it will be an important step for the future study of free-space CV-QKD.
We propose and experimentally demonstrate a continuous-variable quantum key distribution (CV-QKD) protocol using dual-phase-modulated coherent states. We show that the modulation scheme of our protocol works equivalently to that of the Gaussian-modulated coherent-states (GMCS) protocol, but shows better experimental feasibility in the plug-and-play configuration. Besides, it waives the necessity of propagation of a local oscillator (LO) between legitimate users and generates a real local LO for quantum measurement. Our protocol is proposed independent of the one-way GMCS QKD without sending a LO [Opt. Lett. 40, 3695 (2015); Phys. Rev. X 5, 041009 (2015); Phys. Rev. X 5, 041010 (2015)]. In those recent works, the system stability will suffer the impact of polarization drifts induced by environmental perturbations, and two independent frequency-locked laser sources are necessary to achieve reliable coherent detection. In the proposed protocol, these previous problems can be resolved. We derive the security bounds for our protocol against collective attacks, and we also perform a proof-of-principle experiment to confirm the utility of our proposal in real-life applications. Such an efficient scheme provides a way of removing the security loopholes associated with the transmitting LO, which have been a notoriously hard problem in continuous-variable quantum communication.
Continuous-variable quantum key distribution (CV-QKD) using a true local (located at the receiver) oscillator (LO) has been proposed to remove any possibility of side-channel attacks associated with transmission of the LO as well as reduce the cross-pulse contamination. Here we report an implementation of true LO CV-QKD using "off-the-shelf" components and conduct QKD experiments using the fiber optical network at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. A phase reference and quantum signal are time multiplexed and then wavelength division multiplexed with the classical communications which "coexist" with each other on a single optical network fiber. This is the first demonstration of CV-QKD with a receiver-based true LO over a deployed fiber network, a crucial step for its application in real-world situations.
We report a plug-and-play continuous variable quantum key distribution system (CV-QKD) with Gaussian modulated quadratures and a true local oscillator. The proposed configuration avoids the need for frequency locking two narrow line-width lasers. To minimize Rayleigh back-scattering, we utilize two independent fiber strands for the distribution of the laser and the transmission of the quantum signals. We further demonstrate the quantum-classical co-existing capability of our system by injecting high-power classical light in both fibers. A secret key rate up to 0.88 Mb/s is obtained by using two fiber links of 13 km and up to 0.3 Mb/s when adding 4 mW of classical light in the optical fiber used for transmitting the quantum signal. The reported performance indicates that the proposed QKD scheme has the potential to become an effective low-cost solution for metropolitan optical networks.
Abstract In comparison to conventional discrete-variable (DV) quantum key distribution (QKD), continuous-variable (CV) QKD with homodyne/heterodyne measurements has distinct advantages of lower-cost implementation and affinity to wavelength division multiplexing. On the other hand, its continuous nature makes it harder to accommodate to practical signal processing, which is always discretized, leading to lack of complete security proofs so far. Here we propose a tight and robust method of estimating fidelity of an optical pulse to a coherent state via heterodyne measurements. We then construct a binary phase modulated CV-QKD protocol and prove its security in the finite-key-size regime against general coherent attacks, based on proof techniques of DV QKD. Such a complete security proof is indispensable for exploiting the benefits of CV QKD.
Continuous-variable quantum key distribution (CV-QKD) with plug-and-play design offers a promising route in simplifying the system implementation and shows intriguing prospects for quantum access network applications. However, such a scheme makes it possible for the eavesdropper (Eve) to completely control the source, helping her to gain more information since the laser travels through the unsecured channel before being modulated, which will severely compromise the performance of the system and limit its potential application. To fight against the security loophole, we propose a passive source monitoring scheme based on a combination of beam splitter and homodyne detector, as well as source noise suppression. The corresponding entanglement-based model is established to estimate the secret key rate for the proposed scheme. We show that the performance of the plug-and-play CV-QKD system can be significantly improved by using the source monitoring scheme compared with the untrusted source model. With typical parameters, the maximum transmission distance can be promoted by more than 50%, and the secret key rate can be increased by more than 25% when the transmission distance is longer than 50 km. This study provides a feasible approach for improving the security and performance of the plug-and-play CV-QKD and holds positive potential for practical applications.