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Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics Europe & European Quantum Electronics Conference (CLEO/Europe-EQEC)

Robustness of polarization entanglement for long distance QKD

Hannes Hübel, B. Blauensteiner, Michael Hentschel, Michael Ross Vanner, Thomas Lorünser, Andreas Poppe, Anton Zeilinger

Published Jun 1, 2007• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

Quantum key distribution (QKD) is on the brink of being deployed on a large scale. For a successful launch it is important though, that QKD devices can be incorporated into or use existing telecom networks. Although not at telecom wavelengths, QKD based on polarization entanglement has already been shown over 1.4 km outside the laboratory. However, it was thought that dispersion effects, mainly polarization mode dispersion (PMD), in optical fibers will limit the use of polarization entanglement for longer distances. We report the distribution of quantum correlations over a record length of 100 km in telecom fibers with such a high quality that it would be possible to extract a secret key without background subtraction.

DOI
10.1109/cleoe-iqec.2007.4387007

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Quantum key distribution (QKD) is on the brink of being deployed on a large scale. For a successful launch it is important though, that QKD devices can be incorporated into or use existing telecom networks. Although not at telecom wavelengths, QKD based on polarization entanglement has already been shown over 1.4 km outside the laboratory. However, it was thought that dispersion effects, mainly polarization mode dispersion (PMD), in optical fibers will limit the use of polarization entanglement for longer distances. We report the distribution of quantum correlations over a record length of 100 km in telecom fibers with such a high quality that it would be possible to extract a secret key without background subtraction.
Quantum entanglement is one of the most extraordinary effects in quantum physics, with many applications in the emerging field of quantum information science. In particular, it provides the foundation for quantum key distribution (QKD), which promises a conceptual leap in information security. Entanglement-based QKD holds great promise for future applications owing to the possibility of device-independent security and the potential of establishing global-scale quantum repeater networks. While other approaches to QKD have already reached the level of maturity required for operation in absence of typical laboratory infrastructure, comparable field demonstrations of entanglement-based QKD have not been performed so far. Here, we report on the successful distribution of polarization-entangled photon pairs between Malta and Sicily over 96 km of submarine optical telecommunications fiber. We observe around 257 photon pairs per second, with a polarization visibility above 90%. Our results show that QKD based on polarization entanglement is now indeed viable in long-distance fiber links. This field demonstration marks the longest-distance distribution of entanglement in a deployed telecommunications network and demonstrates an international submarine quantum communication channel. This opens up myriad possibilities for future experiments and technological applications using existing infrastructure.
We present in this paper a quantum key distribution (QKD) system based on polarization entanglement for use in telecom fibers. A QKD exchange up to 50 km was demonstrated in the laboratory with a secure key rate of 550 bits s −1 . The system is compact and portable with a fully automated start-up, and stabilization modules for polarization, synchronization and photon coupling allow hands-off operation. Stable and reliable key exchange in a deployed optical fiber of 16 km length was demonstrated. In this fiber network, we achieved over 2 weeks an automatic key generation with an average key rate of 2000 bits s −1 without manual intervention. During this period, the system had an average entanglement visibility of 93%, highlighting the technical level and stability achieved for entanglement-based quantum cryptography.
We demonstrate the distribution of polarization entangled photons of wavelength 810 nm through standard telecom fibers. This technique allows quantum communication protocols to be performed over established fiber infrastructure, and makes use of the smaller and better performing setups available around 800 nm, as compared to those which use telecom wavelengths around 1550 nm. We examine the excitation and subsequent quenching of higher-order spatial modes in telecom fibers up to 6 km in length, and perform a distribution of high quality entanglement (visibility 95.6%). Finally, we demonstrate quantum key distribution using entangled 810 nm photons over a 4.4 km long installed telecom fiber link.
We demonstrate the distribution of polarization-entangled photons for the purpose of quantum key distribution (QKD) along active telecom fibers. Entangled photon pairs of 810 nm wavelength generated by a Sagnac interferometer source were coupled into standard telecom single mode fibers. The fibers were either dark or carrying a standardized 1550 nm ethernet signals (1000BASE-ZX) with a nominal speed of 1 GBps from regular media converter devices, without any requirements on the optical power or spectrum transmitted. Our system demonstrates a QKD network covering 6 km in distance with a central service provider for classical and quantum data.
Abstract Quantum key distribution (QKD) enables unconditionally secure communication guaranteed by the laws of physics. The last decades have seen tremendous efforts in making this technology feasible under real-life conditions, with implementations bridging ever longer distances and creating ever higher secure key rates. Readily deployed glass fiber connections are a natural choice for distributing the single photons necessary for QKD both in intra- and intercity links. Any fiber-based implementation however experiences chromatic dispersion which deteriorates temporal detection precision. This ultimately limits maximum distance and achievable key rate of such QKD systems. In this work, we address this limitation to both maximum distance and key rate and present an effective and easy-to-implement method to overcome chromatic dispersion effects. By exploiting entangled photons’ frequency correlations, we make use of nonlocal dispersion compensation to improve the photons’ temporal correlations. Our experiment is the first implementation utilizing the inherently quantum-mechanical effect of nonlocal dispersion compensation for QKD in this way. We experimentally show an increase in key rate from 6.1 to 228.3 bits/s over 6.46 km of telecom fiber. Our approach is extendable to arbitrary fiber lengths and dispersion values, resulting in substantially increased key rates and even enabling QKD in the first place where strong dispersion would otherwise frustrate key extraction at all.
Abstract Entanglement-based quantum key distribution (QKD) is an essential ingredient in quantum communication, owing to the property of source-independent security and the potential on constructing large-scale quantum communication networks. However, implementation of entanglement-based QKD over long-distance optical fiber links is still challenging, especially over deployed fibers. In this work, we report an experimental QKD using energy-time entangled photon pairs that transmit over optical fibers of 242 km (including a section of 19 km deployed fibers). The QKD is realized through the protocol of dispersive-optics QKD (DO-QKD) with high-dimensional encoding to utilize coincidence counts more efficiently. A reliable, high-accuracy time synchronization technology for long-distance entanglement-based QKD is developed based on the distribution of optical pulses in quantum channels. Our system operates continuously for more than 7 d without active polarization or phase calibration. We ultimately generate secure keys with secure key rates of 0.22 bps and 0.06 bps in the asymptotic and finite-size regimes, respectively. It shows that entanglement-based DO-QKD is reliable for long-distance realization in the field if its high requirement on time synchronization is satisfied.