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International Topical Meeting on Microwave Photonics

Microwave photonic filtering scheme for BB84 Subcarrier Multiplexed Quantum Key Distribution

Jose Mora, A. Ruiz-Alba, Waldimar Amaya, V. García-Muñoz, Alejandro Martı́nez, J. Capmany

Published Oct 1, 2010• 15 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A high performance microwave photonic filter stage is designed and experimentally tested for the implementation of a BB84 Subcarrier Multiplexed Quantum Key Distribution systems SCM-QKD. Results both in the classical and quantum regime show the feasibility of SCM-QKD obtaining visibility values at least 98 % as required for the successful operation of these systems.

DOI
10.1109/mwp.2010.5664176

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A high performance microwave photonic filter stage is designed and experimentally tested for the implementation of a BB84 Subcarrier Multiplexed Quantum Key Distribution systems SCM-QKD. Results both in the classical and quantum regime show the feasibility of SCM-QKD obtaining visibility values at least 98 % as required for the successful operation of these systems.
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The incorporation of multiplexing techniques used in microwave photonics to quantum key distribution (QKD) systems brings important advantages by enabling the simultaneous and parallel delivery of multiple keys between a central station and different end-users in the context of multipoint access and metropolitan networks, or by providing higher key distribution rates in point to point links by suitably linking the parallel distributed keys. It also allows the coexistence of classical information and QKD channels over a single optical fiber infrastructure. In this paper, we show, for the first time to our knowledge, the successful operation of a two-domain (subcarrier and wavelength division) multiplexed strong reference BB84 QKD system. A four-independent channel QKD system featuring a sifted key rate of 10 kb/s/channel over an 11-km link with quantum bit error rate (QBER)$<$2% is reported. These results open the way for multi-QKD over optical fiber networks.
The incorporation of multiplexing techniques used in Microwave Photonics to Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) systems bring important advantages enabling the simultaneous and parallel delivery of multiple keys between a central station and different end-users in the context of multipoint access and metropolitan networks, or by providing higher key distribution rates in point to point links by suitably linking the parallel distributed keys. It also allows the coexistence of classical information and quantum key distribution channels over a single optical fibre infrastructure. Here we show, for the first time to our knowledge, the successful operation of a two domain (subcarrier and wavelength division) multiplexed strong reference BB84 quantum key distribution system. A four independent channel QKD system featuring 10 kb/s/channel over an 11 km link with Quantum Bit Error Rate (QBER) < 2 % is reported. These results open the way for multi-quantum key distribution over optical fiber networks.
This paper provides an in-depth theoretical analysis of subcarrier multiplexed quantum key distribution (SCM-QKD) systems, taking into account as many factors of impairment as possible and especially considering the influence of nonlinear signal mixing on the end-to-end quantum bit error rate (QBER) and the useful key rate. A detailed analysis of SCM-QKD is performed considering the different factors affecting the sideband visibility (drifts in the modulator bias points, modulation index mismatch between Alice and Bob subcarriers) and the impact of nonlinear signal mixing leaking into otherwise void subcarrier sidebands. In a similar way to classical photonic radio-over-fiber telecommunication and cable TV systems, the impact of this nonlinear signal mixing can be accounted in terms of a quantum carrier to noise ratio that depends on the specific frequency plan that is implemented. QBER and useful key rate results for three different frequency plans featuringNNN$=15(low−countchannelsystem),15 (low-count channel system),15(low−countchannelsystem),N$$=$30 (intermediate-count channel system), and$N$$=50(high−countchannelsystem)channelsareprovided,showingthatphotonnonlinearmixingcanbeofimportanceinmiddle−andhigh−countSCM−QKDsystems(50 (high-count channel system) channels are provided, showing that photon nonlinear mixing can be of importance in middle- and high-count SCM-QKD systems (50(high−countchannelsystem)channelsareprovided,showingthatphotonnonlinearmixingcanbeofimportanceinmiddle−andhigh−countSCM−QKDsystems(N≫30),withmoderateRFmodulationindexes(≫ 30), with moderate RF modulation indexes (≫30),withmoderateRFmodulationindexes(m≫5≫ 5%). In practical terms, nonlinear signal mixing can be neglected if low modulation indexes (≫5m$≪ 2%) are employed to encode the photons in the subcarrier sidebands.