Quantum key distribution technology refers to a method to share keys between communication parties by transmitting quantum states in public channels. Although unconditional security is the main advantage of QKD, its application prospect has been controversial in practical implementation due to the potential security risks caused by device imperfections. Fortunately, the measurement device independent quantum key distribution protocol removes the vulnerability of all measurement devices and greatly improves the practical security of the quantum key distribution system. However, the security key rate of this protocol is still lower than that of other quantum key distribution protocols. At present, using high-dimensional coding to improve the performance of the quantum key distribution protocol has been proved in theory and experiment, and recently, it has been proposed to use high-dimensional coding to improve the performance of measurement device independent quantum key distribution protocol, but because these protocols have higher requirements for the laboratory equipment performance, that the high-dimensional encoding is applied to the aforementioned protocol still has many difficulties in practical application. In this paper, we propose a hybrid coding based on the polarization and two-degree phase of freedom measurement device independent quantum key distribution protocol. In the first place in an ideal case, we introduce in detail the protocol decoding rules, then introduce 4intensity decoy-state method to solve the problem of actual light source multiphoton, in addition we also consider the statistical fluctuation effect under the condition of limited code length, channel loss, actual dark count of single photon detector and detection efficiency problem. Finally, the optimal security code rate and its corresponding optimal parameters are obtained by full parameter optimization method, And the numerical simulation results show that the security key rate of this protocol is increased by 50% by considering the practical implementation. We point out that compared with other measurement device independent quantum key distribution protocol, the proposed agreement requires local users only to have a phase encoding device and a polarization coding device, and 4 single photon detectors for detecting side. The proposed device can use the existing experimental condition, beyond that, compared with the time encoding based high dimensional measurement device independent quantum key distribution protocol, the proposed protocol possesses the advantage that the rate of system security key can be increased without increasing the repetition frequency of users. It is proved that this protocol has great application value in the future field of quantum communication, especially, in the field of quantum network communication.
Quantum key distribution technology refers to a method to share keys between communication parties by transmitting quantum states in public channels. Although unconditional security is the main advantage of QKD, its application prospect has been controversial in practical implementation due to the potential security risks caused by device imperfections. Fortunately, the measurement device independent quantum key distribution protocol removes the vulnerability of all measurement devices and greatly improves the practical security of the quantum key distribution system. However, the security key rate of this protocol is still lower than that of other quantum key distribution protocols. At present, using high-dimensional coding to improve the performance of the quantum key distribution protocol has been proved in theory and experiment, and recently, it has been proposed to use high-dimensional coding to improve the performance of measurement device independent quantum key distribution protocol, but because these protocols have higher requirements for the laboratory equipment performance, that the high-dimensional encoding is applied to the aforementioned protocol still has many difficulties in practical application. In this paper, we propose a hybrid coding based on the polarization and two-degree phase of freedom measurement device independent quantum key distribution protocol. In the first place in an ideal case, we introduce in detail the protocol decoding rules, then introduce 4intensity decoy-state method to solve the problem of actual light source multiphoton, in addition we also consider the statistical fluctuation effect under the condition of limited code length, channel loss, actual dark count of single photon detector and detection efficiency problem. Finally, the optimal security code rate and its corresponding optimal parameters are obtained by full parameter optimization method, And the numerical simulation results show that the security key rate of this protocol is increased by 50% by considering the practical implementation. We point out that compared with other measurement device independent quantum key distribution protocol, the proposed agreement requires local users only to have a phase encoding device and a polarization coding device, and 4 single photon detectors for detecting side. The proposed device can use the existing experimental condition, beyond that, compared with the time encoding based high dimensional measurement device independent quantum key distribution protocol, the proposed protocol possesses the advantage that the rate of system security key can be increased without increasing the repetition frequency of users. It is proved that this protocol has great application value in the future field of quantum communication, especially, in the field of quantum network communication.
Quantum key distribution (QKD) enables two legitimate parties to share a secret key even in the presence of an eavesdropper. The unconditional security of QKD is based on the fundamental laws of quantum physics. Original security proofs of QKD are based on a few assumptions, e.g., perfect single photon sources and perfect single-photon detectors. However, practical implementations of QKD systems do not fully comply with such assumptions due to technical limitations. The gap between theory and implementations leads to security loopholes in most QKD systems, and several attacks have been launched on sophisticated QKD systems. Particularly, the detectors have been found to be the most vulnerable part of QKD. Much effort has been put to build side-channel-free QKD systems. Solutions such as security patches and device-independent QKD have been proposed. However, the former are normally ad-hoc, and cannot close unidentified loopholes. The latter, while having the advantages of removing all assumptions on devices, is impractical to implement today. Measurement-device-independent QKD (MDI-QKD) turns out to be a promising solution to the security problem of QKD. In MDI-QKD, all security loopholes, including those yet-to-be discovered, have been removed from the detectors, the most critical part in QKD. In this thesis, we investigate issues related to the practical implementation and security of MDI-QKD. We first present a demonstration of polarization-encoding MDI-QKD. Taking finite key effect into account, we achieve a secret key rate of 0.005 bit per second (bps) over 10 km spooled telecom fiber, and a 1600-bit key is distributed. This work, together with other demonstrations, shows the practicality of MDI-QKD. Next we investigate a critical assumption of MDI-QKD: perfect state preparation. We apply the loss-tolerant QKD protocol and adapt it to MDI-QKD to quantify information leakage due to imperfect state preparation. We then present an experimental demonstration of MDI-QKD over 10 km and 40 km of spooled fiber, which for the first time considers the impact of inaccurate polarization state preparation on the secret key rate. This would not have been possible under previous security proofs, given the same amount of state preparation flaws.
Measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution (MDI-QKD) can be immune to all detector side-channel attacks and guarantee the information-theoretical security even with uncharacterized single photon detectors. MDI-QKD has been demonstrated in both laboratories and field-tests by using attenuated lasers combined with the decoy-state technique. However, it is a critical assumption that the sources used by legitimate participants are trusted in MDI-QKD. Hence, it is possible that a potential security risk exists. Here we propose a new scheme of polarization-encoding-based MDI-QKD with a single untrusted source, by which the complexity of the synchronization system can be reduced and the success rate of the Bell-state measurement can be improved. Meanwhile, the decoy-state method is employed to avoid the security issues introduced by a non-ideal single photon source. We also derive a security analysis of the proposed system. In addition, it seems to be a promising candidate for the implementation for QKD network in the near future.
Quantum key distribution is proven to offer unconditional security in communication between two remote users with ideal source and detection. Unfortunately, ideal devices never exist in practice and device imperfections have become the targets of various attacks. By developing up-conversion single-photon detectors with high efficiency and low noise, we faithfully demonstrate the measurement-device-independent quantum-key-distribution protocol, which is immune to all hacking strategies on detection. Meanwhile, we employ the decoy-state method to defend attacks on a nonideal source. By assuming a trusted source scenario, our practical system, which generates more than a 25 kbit secure key over a 50 km fiber link, serves as a stepping stone in the quest for unconditionally secure communications with realistic devices.
The security of quantum key distribution (QKD) is based on the basic principles of quantum mechanics, and therefore has unconditional security in theory. In existing quantum key distribution systems, weakly coherent sources (WCSs) are often used as light sources due to a high probability of vacuum pulses in these sources, resulting in limited transmission distances. Besides, there inevitably exist equipment defects in actual QKD systems, such as certain defects in phase modulators and intensity modulators, which lead to distinguishability of quantum states in higher dimensions and result in side-channel vulnerabilities. An eavesdropper can carry out corresponding attacks, thereby threatening the actual security of QKD systems. To overcome the above limitations, we propose an improved protocol on quantum key distribution based on monitoring heralded single-photon sources. Due to the simultaneity of parametric down-conversion photon pairs, we can accurately predict the arrival of one photon by measuring the arrival time of another photon. Through this way, we can greatly reduce the probability of vacuum states in the signal light, and increase the longest transmission distance of the QKD system. Moreover, a light source monitoring module is inserted into the sender’s side. By randomly selecting a certain period of time through the source monitoring module to measure the Hong-Ou-Mandel interference between the signal light and the idle light , we can estimate the side-channel information leakage of the source and then obtain the key generation rate. Compared with the QKD protocol based on monitoring weak coherent sources, our present protocol can give a better performance in either the transmission distance or the key generation rate, especially when the interference error is large. In addition, in principle, our present protocol can also be extended to other quantum key distribution protocols, such as the measurement-device-independent protocols, to further improve the security and practicability of QKD systems. Therefore, our present work can provide valuable references for realizing the large-scale application of quantum communication networks in the near future.
Based on the analysis of the security performance and existing problems of quantum key distribution (QKD) protocol and measurement device independent quantum key distribution protocol (MDI-QKD), this article proposes a four-dimensional MDI-QKD scheme based on phase polarization hybrid encoding, combining phase polarization encoding, quantum state fusion and segmentation principles, and high-dimensional MDI-QKD scheme, and designs a matching four-dimensional simulation model. The simulation results show that under different polarization dismatch parameters, the performance of the four-dimensional MDI-QKD scheme based on hybrid encoding has been significantly improved in terms of key generation rate and secure communication distance.
Abstract The Quantum Key Distribution protocol can encode a single quantum state and implements an information-theoretically secure key distribution protocol in communication. In the actual QKD experimental system, there are usually two encoding methods which are phase encoding and polarization encoding. Ma et al (Phase-Matching Quantum Key Distribution, Phys. Rev. X., 2018, 83) proposed the phase-matching QKD protocol, which has high transmission and it is an extension of the measurement device independent QKD. This paper successfully gives the polarization scheme of this PM-QKD protocol, the bases in the polarization scheme are arbitrary, and eliminates detector side channel attacks. Furthermore, we give the security analysis and simulation results of the polarization scheme, and compare it with the BB84 protocol. The simulation results show that our protocol is superior to the BB84 protocol in terms of transmission distance under the fixed key rate.