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Frontiers in Optics

QCoSOne: a chip-based prototype for daylight free-space QKD at telecom wavelength

Marco Avesani, Luca Calderaro, Matteo Schiavon, Andrea Stanco, Costantino Agnesi, Alberto Santamato, Mujtaba Zahidy, Alessia Scriminich, Giulio Foletto, G. Contestabile, Marco Chiesa, Davide Rotta, M. Artiglia, Alberto Montanaro, M. Romagnoli, Vito Sorianello, Francesco Vedovato, Giuseppe Vallone, Paolo Villoresi

Published Jan 1, 2019• 5 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Here we present a daylight QKD system using silicon photonics. The system exhibits continuous daytime operation, outperforms comparable systems by two orders of magnitude, and represents a promising resource for future satellite missions.
DOI
10.1364/fio.2019.ftu6a.2

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The future global-scale quantum communication network will require free-space and satellite links able to work in daylight conditions and compatible with the telecom fiber infrastructure. Here we present a full prototype for daylight quantum key distribution at 1550 nm exploiting an integrated silicon-photonics chip as state encoder. We tested our prototype in the urban area of Padua (Italy) over a 145m-long free-space link, obtaining a quantum bit error rate around 0.5% and an averaged secret key rate of 30 kbps. The developed chip represents a cost-effective solution for portable free-space transmitters and a promising resource for future satellite missions.
Abstract The future envisaged global-scale quantum-communication network will comprise various nodes interconnected via optical fibers or free-space channels, depending on the link distance. The free-space segment of such a network should guarantee certain key requirements, such as daytime operation and the compatibility with the complementary telecom-based fiber infrastructure. In addition, space-to-ground links will require the capability of designing light and compact quantum devices to be placed in orbit. For these reasons, investigating available solutions matching all the above requirements is still necessary. Here we present a full prototype for daylight quantum key distribution at 1550 nm exploiting an integrated silicon-photonics chip as state encoder. We tested our prototype in the urban area of Padua (Italy) over a 145 m-long free-space link, obtaining a quantum bit error rate around 0.5% and an averaged secret key rate of 30 kbps during a whole sunny day (from 11:00 to 20:00). The developed chip represents a cost-effective solution for portable free-space transmitters and a promising resource to design quantum optical payloads for future satellite missions.
Satellite based quantum communication has been proven as a feasible way to achieve global scale quantum communication network. Very recently, a low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellite has been launched for this purpose. However, with a single satellite, it takes an inefficient 3-day period to provide the worldwide connectivity. On the other hand, similar to how the Iridium system functions in classic communication, satellite constellation (SC) composed of many quantum satellites, could provide global real-time quantum communication. In such a SC, most of the satellites will work in sunlight. Unfortunately, none of previous ground testing experiments could be implemented at daytime. During daytime, the bright sunlight background prohibits quantum communication in transmission over long distances. In this letter, by choosing a working wavelength of 1550 nm and developing free-space single-mode fibre coupling technology and ultralow noise up-conversion single photon detectors, we overcome the noise due to sunlight and demonstrate a 53-km free space quantum key distribution (QKD) in the daytime through a 48-dB loss channel. Our system not only shows the feasibility of satellite based quantum communication in daylight, but also has the ability to naturally adapt to ground fibre optics, representing an essential step towards a SC-based global quantum network.
We developed a high-speed quantum key distribution (QKD) system integrated with a compact self-developed silica-based planar lightwave circuit chip and a micro-optics-based polarization module. Also, we demonstrated that our system can generate average secure keys at the rate of 701.22 kbps over a free-space link of 275 m in daylight by using effective noise filtering systems in the temporal, spectral, and spatial domains. Real-time beam tracking system was adopted to stabilize the fluctuation of the beam position.
We report the fully telecom compliant generation of photon pairs on a silicon micro-ring resonator chip. The ring cavity is designed such as to demultiplex the emitted frequency-comb like spectrum using standard off-the-shelves telecom 100 GHz dense wavelength division multiplexers (DWDM). We measure energy-time entanglement in different channel pairs with raw visibilities exceeding 97%, which paves the way for silicon photonics based quantum key distribution (QKD) with either increased bit rates, or more users.
Current satellite-based quantum key distribution (QKD) is limited to nighttime operations, and the reliance on microwave communication for key distillation leads to significant delays, often spanning several days. These challenges collectively hinder the establishment of a practical global-scale quantum network. Here, by developing a 625-MHz inherently robust decoy-state light source and daytime noise suppression close to the Fourier transform limitation, we achieve QKD covering all the 24 h of the day over a 20-km terrestrial free-space channel, resulting in an average secure key rate of approximately 495 bps. Additionally, bidirectional laser communication is integrated into the QKD transmitter and the ground station to enable real-time key distillation, improving the timeliness from days to real time. This comprehensive verification lays a solid foundation and paves the way for all-day real-time QKD with quantum satellites.