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

Quantum cryptography with a single-photon source

Edo Waks A, Kyo Inoue, Charles Santori, David A. Fattal, Jelena Vuckovic A, Glenn S. Solomon, Y. Yamamoto

Published Feb 3, 2004• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

Quantum cryptography is a method to exchange secret messages with unconditional security over a potentially hostile environment using single photons. Previous implementations of quantum cryptography have relied on highly attenuated laser light to approximate single photo states. Such sources are vulnerable to eavesdropping attacks based on photon splitting. Here we present an experimental demonstration of quantum cryptography using a single photon source based on Indium Arsenide quantum dots. We achieve a communication rate of 25kbits/s. This source allows secure communication over a quantum channel with up to 28dB of channel loss, as opposed to only 23dB for an attenuated laser.

DOI
10.1117/12.512319

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Quantum cryptography is a method to exchange secret messages with unconditional security over a potentially hostile environment using single photons. Previous implementations of quantum cryptography have relied on highly attenuated laser light to approximate single photo states. Such sources are vulnerable to eavesdropping attacks based on photon splitting. Here we present an experimental demonstration of quantum cryptography using a single photon source based on Indium Arsenide quantum dots. We achieve a communication rate of 25kbits/s. This source allows secure communication over a quantum channel with up to 28dB of channel loss, as opposed to only 23dB for an attenuated laser.
Practical implementations of quantum cryptography use attenuated laser pulses as the signal source rather than single photons. The channels used to transmit are also lossy. Here we give a simple derivation of two beam-splitting attacks on quantum cryptographic systems using laser pulses, either coherent or mixed states with any mean photon number. We also give a simple derivation of a photon-number splitting attack, the most advanced, both in terms of performance and technology required. We find bounds on the maximum disturbance for a given mean photon number and observed channel transmission efficiency for which a secret key can be distilled. We start by reviewing two incoherent attacks that can be used on single photon quantum cryptographic systems. These results are then adapted to systems that use laser pulses and lossy channels.
Practical implementations of quantum cryptography use attenuated laser pulses as the signal source rather than single photons. The channels used to transmit are also lossy. Here we give a simple derivation of two beamsplitting attacks on quantum cryptographic systems using laser pulses, either coherent or mixed states with any mean photon number. We also give a simple derivation of a photon-number splitting attack, the most advanced, both in terms of performance and technology required. We find bounds on the maximum disturbance for a given mean photon number and observed channel transmission efficiency for which a secret key can be distilled. We start by reviewing two incoherent attacks that can be used on single photon quantum cryptographic systems. These results are then adapted to systems that use laser pulses and lossy channels.
Practical implementations of quantum cryptography use attenuated laser pulses as the signal source rather than single photons. The channels used to transmit are also lossy. Here we give a simple derivation of two beamsplitting attacks on quantum cryptographic systems using laser pulses, either coherent or mixed states with any mean photon number. We also give a simple derivation of a photon-number splitting attack, the most advanced, both in terms of performance and technology required. We find bounds on the maximum disturbance for a given mean photon number and observed channel transmission efficiency for which a secret key can be distilled. We start by reviewing two incoherent attacks that can be used on single photon quantum cryptographic systems. These results are then adapted to systems that use laser pulses and lossy channels.
Abstract Quantum cryptography harnesses quantum light, in particular single photons, to provide security guarantees that cannot be reached by classical means. For each cryptographic task, the security feature of interest is directly related to the photons’ non-classical properties. Quantum dot-based single-photon sources are remarkable candidates, as they can in principle emit deterministically, with high brightness and low multiphoton contribution. Here, we show that these sources provide additional security benefits, thanks to the tunability of coherence in the emitted photon-number states. We identify the optimal optical pumping scheme for the main quantum-cryptographic primitives, and benchmark their performance with respect to Poisson-distributed sources such as attenuated laser states and down-conversion sources. In particular, we elaborate on the advantage of using phonon-assisted and two-photon excitation rather than resonant excitation for quantum key distribution and other primitives. The presented results will guide future developments in solid-state and quantum information science for photon sources that are tailored to quantum communication tasks.
Modern communication in absolute secrecy requires creation of new intrinsically secure quantum communication channels. It is particularly necessary during the first connection between two parties establishing then in assumed unconditional security the secret cryptographic key which is supposed to be used afterwards during normal information exchanging. This new emerging field of quantum information technology is based on a new type of light sources, in which numbers of emitted photons can be carefully controlled. Especially advantageous are sources of single photons emitted at strictly predetermined moments, so called single-photon devices. Then any possible eavesdropper activity will be followed by some unavoidable disturbance which alerts both communication parties to an event. In the present paper, the Purcell effect associated with enhancement of spontaneous emission coupled to a resonator is explained, methods used to produce streams of antibunched photons are given, mechanisms applied to control carrier injection into quantum dots are shown and some possible designs of single-photon devices are presented and described. These devices are based on taking advantage of both the Purcell effect and the atom-like energy spectrum of quantum dots.