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International Conference on Photonics, Optics and Laser Technology

Transmitter Design Proposal for the BB84 Quantum Key Distribution Protocol using Polarization Modulated Vertical Cavity Surface-emitting Lasers

Ágoston Schranz, Eszter Udvary

Published Jan 1, 2018• 2 citations
Publisher
DOI
10.5220/0006638002520258

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We report on a BB84 decoy-state quantum key distribution (QKD) system constructed using commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components. Four 794 nm vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) are current-modulated at 10 MHz rate with three power levels to form a decoy state transmitter. The COTS VCSELs exhibit long term stability with high polarization extinction ratio, narrow band operation (sub-nanometer bandwidth), and wavelength tunability and stability suitable for constructing four indistinguishable qubit channels. A 780 nm, 10 MHz time-transfer channel is used for transferring the timing information along with a start and end marker for the qubit transfer period. Internally-developed transmitter laser drivers and receiver detectors are controlled and read out with COTS system-on-chip (SoC) boards. We obtain a nominal bit-error-rate (BER) of ~4% for the system. We also report on the development of a synchronous (100 MHz) single photon detector for increasing the repetition rate of our QKD system. This work shows promise for building a COTS-based, small size, weight, and power hardware for space applications.
In recent years, the need for secure data communication has increased. Here, quantum key distribution (QKD) offers fundamental advantages over classical key distribution. Despite its high level of security, QKD comes a long with numerous challenges regarding the application of single photons. In this view, the decoy state protocol offers the possibility to implement QKD using classical light sources such as semiconductor lasers. In this contribution we present the newest results of our approach for the realization of a monolithic 850 nm vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) array capable for QKD via the BB84 and decoy state protocol.
Semiconductor lasers are normally used as single-photon sources in most commercial and research quantum key distribution (QKD) systems [1]. These lasers are also used for quantum random number generation (QRNG) that is a necessary security requirement for QKD. In device-dependent QRNGs unpredictability is guaranteed by comparing experimental measurements with simulation data obtained from a model of the physical entropy source [2]. The characterization of phase fluctuations in a gain-switched edge-emitting semiconductor laser for QRNG has been recently performed [2]. Very recently a QRNG based on the random excitation of the linearly polarized modes of a gain-switched vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) has also been proposed [3]. In this work we characterize the polarization fluctuations found in this system by comparing experimental measurements with the results obtained from the simulation of a VCSEL's model that incorporates the device intrinsic parameters found using state-of-the-art experimental techniques [4].