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Optical Communication Technology

The drive circuit design of phase modulator module in QKD system

Yonggang Wang

Published Jan 1, 2010• 0 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

Phase modulator is an indispensable optical modulator in quantum key distribution as it can affect the quantum bit error rate.A control circuit for driving phase modulator is presented using high-speed and high frequency analog switch.Simulation results show that the output voltage pulse width can be less than 10ns,which can be well applied to quantum key distribution (QKD) system.The feasibility and reliability of the scheme are verified through theoretical analysis and experiment results.

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Phase modulator is an indispensable optical modulator in quantum key distribution as it can affect the quantum bit error rate.A control circuit for driving phase modulator is presented using high-speed and high frequency analog switch.Simulation results show that the output voltage pulse width can be less than 10ns,which can be well applied to quantum key distribution (QKD) system.The feasibility and reliability of the scheme are verified through theoretical analysis and experiment results.
Based on analysis of working principle and circuit requirement of the phase modulator in quantum key distribution system,the phase modulator drive circuit is designed.The scheme,based on LiNbO3 electro-optic phase modulator,applies FPGA to providing the clock and control signals,while high-precision DAC and high-speed analog switch to producing the drive signal with precision up to nanoseconds.The driver circuit,with low cost,high modulation precision,and low power consumption,could achieve a precise control of optical phase.The experimental result indicates that this design could fully meet the system requirements,and the scheme is of feasibility and reliability.
Quantum key distribution (QKD) offers the ability of information theoretic security key exchange. The secure key rate is an important indicator for the practical QKD systems, which determines what kinds of applications can be supported. One most effective way to enhance the secure key rate is to increase the system repetition frequency. Here, we report an implementation of a high-speed DC-coupled modulator driving circuit with a repetition rate of up to 5 GHz. The circuit outputs a multi-amplitude return-to-zero pattern pulse with a maximum amplitude of 7.5 V. The design adapts to the various electro-optic modulators widely employed in QKD systems. The minimum pulse width is measured as 75 ps, with the relative noise level less than 1.5% for all the output amplitudes under random modulation.
This paper presents a laser modulation driver using active feedback in a 130-nm CMOS process. The driver is designed for laser modulator in quantum key distribution (QKD) experiments. The laser modulator requires a drive signal with adjustable amplitude and pulse-width. We employ a delay-adjustable delay chain and a multi-stage amplifier with active feedback to provide a current pulse signal with an adjustable pulse-width from 110 ps to 3.3 ns and an amplitude adjustment range of 0 mA to 14.4 mA to drive the laser modulation. By employing the active feedback, the rising/falling edge of the output current in the proposed circuit can reach 70 ps, while the data rate is up to 625 Mb/s. The post layout simulation results indicate that the modulation driver can meet the requirements of the QKD experiments.
We present a design for a quantum key distribution (QKD) system in a Sagnac loop configuration, employing a novel phase modulation scheme based on frequency shift, and demonstrate stable BB84 QKD operation with high interference visibility and low quantum bit error rate (QBER). The phase modulation is achieved by sending two light pulses with a fixed time delay (or a fixed optical path delay) through a frequency shift element and by modulating the amount of frequency shift. The relative phase between two light pulses upon leaving the frequency-shift element is determined by both the time delay (or the optical path delay) and the frequency shift, and can therefore be controlled by varying the amount of frequency shift. To demonstrate its operation, we used an acousto-optic modulator (AOM) as the frequency-shift element, and vary the driving frequency of the AOM to encode phase information. The interference visibility for a 40 km and a 10 km fiber loop is 96% and 99%, respectively, at single photon level. We ran BB84 protocol in a 40-km Sagnac loop setup continuously for one hour and the measured QBER remained within the 2%-5% range. A further advantage of our scheme is that both phase and amplitude modulation can be achieved simultaneously by frequency and amplitude modulation of the AOM's driving signal, allowing our QKD system the capability of implementing other protocols, such as the decoy-state QKD and the continuous-variable QKD. We also briefly discuss a new type of Eavesdropping strategy ("phase-remapping" attack) in bidirectional QKD system
A new sending after verify scheme,which was employed to solve the polarization fluctuation in quantum channel for QKD implementation based on polarization coding,was proposed in this paper.According this scheme,an optical phase shifter driven by voltage was developed.By altering the input voltage of phase modulator,the optical phase shifter can produce arbitrary polarization states.With the optical phase shifter and a half-wave plate,the polarization states of a QKD system can be resumed to Alice's original state discretionarily at Bob,it confirm the quantum channel is usable for QKD.The feasibility of the kernel part of the sending after verifying scheme in quantum channel for quantum key distribution system was validated in theory and practice.Because of the high modulation speed(GHz) in waveguide phase-modulators,the new scheme can help settling the polarization fluctuation in fiber-based QKD systems.