A quantum cryptography set-up is described. It uses polarized photons to code the key. The photons remain guided from the semiconductor laser diode until the photon counter module. The feasibility of establishing a key over more than 1 km by this method has been experimentally demonstrated.
Quantum cryptography allows the establishing of a highly confidential sequence of random bits between two parties who share no secret information in advance. Its security is guaranteed by the basic laws of quantum mechanics rather than mathematical difficulty. An experimental system based on a novel protocol for quantum cryptography using only two nonorthogonal photon polarization states is implemented. The photon sources are two semiconductor laser diodes operated at 680 nm, their light pulses which are heavily attenuated to far below one photon per pulse are employed to encode the key. Gated single photon detection technique is used to minimize the dark count effect of the photon multiplier tube. Key establishing rate of 40 b/s and error rate of 2.1% are obtained. Compared with other systems, our system has the simplest experimental setup.
The secure distribution of the secret random bit sequences known as ‘key’ material, is an essential precursor to their use for the encryption and decryption of confidential communications. Quantum cryptography is a new technique for secure key distribution with single-photon transmissions: Heisenberg's uncertainty principle ensures that an adversary can neither successfully tap the key transmissions, nor evade detection (eavesdropping raises the key error rate above a threshold value). We have developed experimental quantum cryptography systems based on the transmission of non-orthogonal photon states to generate shared key material over multikilometre optical fibre paths and over line-of-sight links. In both cases, key material is built up using the transmission of a single-photon per bit of an initial secret random sequence. A quantum-mechanically random subset of this sequence is identified, becoming the key material after a data reconciliation stage with the sender. Here we report the most recent results of our optical fibre experiment in which we have performed quantum key distribution over a 48 km optical fibre network at Los Alamos using photon interference states with the B92 and BB84 quantum key distribution protocols.
This paper reports on the results of experimental investigations into the distribution of a quantum key on a setup designed for quantum cryptography with single photons. The quantum key is transmitted with pulsed semiconductor lasers by coding polarization states of photons in two alternative nonorthogonal bases. Silicon avalanche photodiodes (C30902S) serve as single-photon detectors. The rate of key generation is equal to 1.8 kbit/s when the clock frequency of laser pulse repetition is 100 kHz and the mean number of photons per pulse is approximately equal to 0.2. The number of errors in the key does not exceed 1%.