We propose an improved quantum key distribution (QKD) protocol based on orbital angular momentum (OAM) entangled states. Three Lucas-valued OAM entangled photons are generated by two cascaded spontaneous parameter down-conversion processes. Two photons are detained and detected by Alice, while the other is transmitted to Bob and then detected. A new scheme is designed to sift the original key bits. Compared to existing protocols, we believe our protocol greatly improves coding efficiency and is verifiable. The analysis results show that our protocol is immune to the photon-number-splitting attack, the intercept-resend attack and the classical information leakage. This work provides an efficient path to high-dimensional QKD systems.
We propose an improved quantum key distribution (QKD) protocol based on orbital angular momentum (OAM) entangled states. Three Lucas-valued OAM entangled photons are generated by two cascaded spontaneous parameter down-conversion processes. Two photons are detained and detected by Alice, while the other is transmitted to Bob and then detected. A new scheme is designed to sift the original key bits. Compared to existing protocols, we believe our protocol greatly improves coding efficiency and is verifiable. The analysis results show that our protocol is immune to the photon-number-splitting attack, the intercept-resend attack and the classical information leakage. This work provides an efficient path to high-dimensional QKD systems.
Quantum cryptography and quantum key distribution (QKD) have been the most successful applications of quantum information processing, highlighting the unique capability of quantum mechanics, through the no-cloning theorem, to protect the security of shared encryption keys. Here we present a new and fundamentally different approach to high-capacity, high-efficiency QKD by exploiting interplay between cross-disciplinary ideas from quantum information and light scattering of aperiodic photonic media. The novelty of the proposed approach relies on a unique type of entangled-photon source and a new physical mechanism for efficiently sharing keys. The new source produces entangled photons with orbital angular momenta (OAM) randomly distributed among Fibonacci numbers. Combining entanglement with the mathematical properties of Fibonacci sequences leads to a new QKD protocol. This Fibonacci protocol is immune to photon-number-splitting attacks and allows secure generation of long keys from few photons. Unlike other protocols, reference frame alignment and active modulation of production and detection bases are unnecessary, since security does not require use of non-orthogonal polarization measurements.
We experimentally demonstrate a quantum key distribution protocol using entangled photon pairs in orbital angular momentum (OAM). Here Alice uses a fixed phase hologram to modulate her OAM state on one photon with a spatial light modulator (SLM), while Bob uses the designed N different phase holograms for his N-based keys on the other photon with his SLM. With coincidences, Alice can fully retrieve the keys sent by Bob without reconciliation. We report the experiment results with N = 3 and OAM eigenmodes |ℓ = ±1〉, and discuss the security from the light path and typical attacks.
How to improve the key distribution efficiency is key technique in quantum key distribution. An efficient quantum key distribution (QKD) protocol based on Orbital Angular Momentum (OAM) states in the d-dimension Hilbert space is presented in this paper. In the protocol, each photon carries log2d bits information, and the key distribution efficiency is improved greatly. In addition, the numerical simulation for this key distribution protocol are also given to show the availability of the protocol.
Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) guarantees the security of communication with quantum physics. Most of widely adopted QKD protocols currently encode the key information with binary signal format---qubit, such as the polarization states. Therefore the transmitted information efficiency of the quantum key is intrinsically upper bounded by 1 bit per photon. High dimensional quantum system is a potential candidate for increasing the capacity of single photon. However, due to the difficulty in manipulating and measuring high dimensional quantum systems, the experimental high dimensional QKD is still at its infancy. Here we propose a sort of practical high-speed high dimensional QKD using partial mutual unbiased basis (PMUB) of photon's orbital angular momentum (OAM). Different from the previous OAM encoding, the high dimensional Hilbert space we used is expanded by the OAM states with same mode order, which can be extended to considerably high dimensions and implemented under current state of the art. Because all the OAM states are in the same mode order, the coherence will be well kept after long-distance propagation, and the detection can be achieved by using passive linear optical elements with very high speed. We show that our protocol has high key generation rate and analyze the anti-noise ability under atmospheric turbulence. Furthermore, the security of our protocol based on PMUB is rigorously proved. Our protocol paves a brand new way for the application of photon's OAM in high dimensional QKD field, which can be a breakthrough for high efficiency quantum communications.
It has been widely recognized that the underlying principles of quantum mechanics could be used to enable secure communications, without any additional conventional cryptographic systems, while utilizing the properties of the photons. Considerable research efforts have been invested to develop an efficient quantum key distribution (QKD) scheme over either free-space optical or fiber-optics channels. Most of these research efforts have been focused on a two-dimensional QKD, commonly realized by the use of the polarization state of photons. However, the data rates for the quantum key exchange in two-dimensional QKD are still low, while transmission distance is limited. On the other hand, it is well known that photons can carry both the spin angular momentum (SAM) and the orbital angular momentum (OAM), associated with the polarization and azimuthal phase of the complex electric field, respectively. Accordingly, we can define the combined-OAM-SAM state of a photon as |l, σ〉, where l and σ correspond to OAM and SAM indexes, respectively. Since the OAM eigenstates are orthogonal, an arbitrary number of bits per single photon can be transmitted, which could considerably increase the total secure bit rate. To improve secure data rates, we propose two types of protocols, namely, nonentangled-based (such as weak coherent state) and entanglement-assisted protocols, both employing the photon combined-OAM-SAM state, which can be used for secure key distribution over free-space optical and few-mode fiber channels. Two types of entanglement-assisted protocols are described, namely, two-basis and (D + 1)-basis protocols ( D is dimensionality of corresponding Hilbert space). We further describe how to implement the qudit gates required for implementation of these protocols. Finally, we discuss the security issues of the proposed protocols and determine both infinite and finite secret key fraction rates.
The bandwidth of any communication system, classical or quantum, is limited by the number of orthogonal states in which the information can be encoded. Quantum key distribution systems available commercially rely on the two-dimensional polarisation state of photons. Quantum computation has also been largely designed on the basis of qubits. However, a photon is endowed with other degrees of freedom, such as orbital angular momentum (OAM). OAM is an attractive basis to be used for quantum information because it is discrete and theoretically infinite-dimensional. This promises a higher information capacity per photon which can lead to more complex quantum computation protocols and more security and robustness for quantum cryptography. Entanglement of OAM naturally arises from spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC). However, any practical experiment utilising the innately high-dimensional entanglement of the orbital angular momentum (OAM) state space of photons is subject to the modal capacity of the detection system. Only a finite subset of this space is accessible experimentally. Given such a constraint, we show that the number of measured, entangled OAM modes in photon pairs generated by SPDC can be increased by tuning the phase-matching conditions in the SPDC process. We achieve this by tuning the orientation angle of the nonlinear crystal generating the entangled photons.