One of the key assumptions in the security proof of BB84 quantum key distribution (QKD) protocol with a weak coherent light source is that the phase of each pulse emitted from the source is random. If the phases correlated, an efficient eavesdropping method exists, and more sacrifice bits are necessary to guarantee the security of the protocol. The phase correlation between the adjacent pulses was examined experimentally, for the first time, by measuring the visibility of interference. An asymmetric Mach-Zehnder interferometer was used to observe the interference between adjacent pulses from a distributed feedback (DFB) laser diode driven by 10 GHz clock signal. Clear interference was observed when the DC bias current exceeds the laser threshold. This high visibility implies phase correlation between pulses. In contrast, only a low visibility, i.e. very weak phase correlation, was observed when the DC bias current was set far below the threshold. The phase correlation became stronger as the DC bias current increased. The experimental results imply that a QKD equipment implementing BB84 protocol with a coherent light source is secure as long as the laser is operated in gain-switch even for 10 GHz clock frequency.
One of the key assumptions in the security proof of BB84 quantum key distribution (QKD) protocol with a weak coherent light source is that the phase of each pulse emitted from the source is random. If the phases correlated, an efficient eavesdropping method exists, and more sacrifice bits are necessary to guarantee the security of the protocol. The phase correlation between the adjacent pulses was examined experimentally, for the first time, by measuring the visibility of interference. An asymmetric Mach-Zehnder interferometer was used to observe the interference between adjacent pulses from a distributed feedback (DFB) laser diode driven by 10 GHz clock signal. Clear interference was observed when the DC bias current exceeds the laser threshold. This high visibility implies phase correlation between pulses. In contrast, only a low visibility, i.e. very weak phase correlation, was observed when the DC bias current was set far below the threshold. The phase correlation became stronger as the DC bias current increased. The experimental results imply that a QKD equipment implementing BB84 protocol with a coherent light source is secure as long as the laser is operated in gain-switch even for 10 GHz clock frequency.
One of the key assumptions in the security proof of BB84 quantum key distribution (QKD) protocol with a weak coherent light source is that the phase of each pulse emitted from the source is random. If the phases correlated, an efficient eavesdropping method exists, and more sacrifice bits are necessary to guarantee the security of the protocol. The phase correlation between the adjacent pulses was examined experimentally, for the first time, by measuring the visibility of interference. An asymmetric Mach-Zehnder interferometer was used to observe the interference between adjacent pulses from a distributed feedback (DFB) laser diode driven by 10 GHz clock signal. Clear interference was observed when the DC bias current exceeds the laser threshold. This high visibility implies phase correlation between pulses. In contrast, only a low visibility, i.e. very weak phase correlation, was observed when the DC bias current was set far below the threshold. The phase correlation became stronger as the DC bias current increased. The experimental results imply that a QKD equipment implementing BB84 protocol with a coherent light source is secure as long as the laser is operated in gain-switch even for 10 GHz clock frequency.
Phase-randomized light is one of the key assumptions in the security proof of the Bennett-Brassard 1984 (BB84) quantum-key-distribution (QKD) protocol using an attenuated laser. Though the assumption has been believed to be satisfied for conventional systems, it should be reexamined for current high-speed QKD systems. The phase correlation may be induced by the overlap of the optical pulses, the interval of which decreases as the clock frequency increases. The phase randomness was investigated experimentally by measuring the visibility of interference. An asymmetric Mach-Zehnder interferometer was used to observe the interference between adjacent pulses from a gain-switched distributed feedback laser diode driven at 10 GHz. Low visibility was observed when the minimum drive current was set far below the threshold, while interference emerged when the minimum drive current was close to the threshold. The theoretical evaluation on the impact of the imperfect phase randomization provides target values for the visibility to guarantee the phase randomness. The experimental and theoretical results show that secure implementation of decoy BB84 protocol is achievable even for the 10-GHz clock frequency by using the laser diode under proper operating conditions.
Quantum key distribution (QKD) allows two users to communicate with theoretically provable secrecy [1]. This is vitally important to secure the confidential data of governments, businesses and individuals. As the technology is adopted by a wider audience, a quantum network will become necessary for multi-party communication, as in the classical communication networks in use today. Unfortunately, a number of phase-encoded QKD protocols based on weak coherent pulses have been developed. Whilst the first protocol, proposed by Bennett and Brassard in 1984 (BB84), is still commonly used, other protocols such as differential phase shift [2] or coherent one way QKD [3] are also adopted. Each protocol has its benefits; however all would require a different transmitter and receiver, increasing the complexity and cost of quantum networks. In this work we demonstrate a multi-protocol transmitter [4-6] that also has the benefits of small footprint, low power consumption and low complexity. We use this transmitter to give the first experimental demonstration of an improved version of the BB84 protocol, known as the differential quadrature phase shift protocol. We have achieved megabit per second secure key rates at short distances, and have shown secure key rates that are, on average, 2.71 times higher than the standard BB84 protocol. This enhanced performance over such a commonly adopted protocol, at no expense to experimental complexity, could lead to a widespread migration to the new protocol. The security of the BB84 protocol relies on each signal and reference pulse pair being globally phase randomised with respect to all other pulse pairs. In the DQPS protocol, blocks with a length L ≥ 2 are used and each block has a globally random phase with respect to all other blocks. Implementing this protocol would ordinarily require a high-speed random number generator and a phase modulator. As well as increasing device complexity, it would also require an unrealistic continuous source of electrical modulation signals for complete security. The transmitter we use injects light from a master laser diode into a 2 GHz gain-switched slave laser diode. The principal of optical injection locking means that the slave laser inherits the phase of the master laser. We apply modulations to the master laser current within a block to control the phase of the slave laser output pulses, and then drive the master laser below threshold for a short period of time when phase randomisation is required. This ensures the lasing comes from below threshold, thus the phase adopted by the slave laser pulse is completely random. We perform an autocorrelation measurement on the blocks to show their randomness. [1] N. Gisin et al. Rev. Mod. Phys. 74, 145 (2002). [2] K. Inoue et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 89, 037902 (2002). [3] D. Stucki et al. Appl. Phys. Lett. 87 194108 (2005). [4] Z. Yuan et al. Phys. Rev. X. 6, 031044 (2016). [5] G. L. Roberts et al. Laser Phot. Rev. 11, 1700067 (2017). [6] G. L. Roberts et al. arXiv:1709.04214 [quant-ph] (2017).
Since the introduction of the decoy-state technique, phase-randomized weak coherent light pulses have been the key to increase the practicality of quantum-based communications. Their ultrafast generation was accomplished via compact gain-switched (GS) lasers, leading to high key rates in quantum key distribution (QKD). Recently, the question arose whether the same laser could be employed to achieve high-speed measurement-device-independent QKD, a scheme that promises long-haul quantum communications immune to all detector attacks. For that, a challenging high-visibility interference between independent picosecond optical pulses is required. Here, we answer the above question in the affirmative by demonstrating high-visibility interference from two independent GS lasers triggered at 1 GHz. The result is obtained through a careful characterization of the laser frequency chirp and time jitter. By relating these quantities to the interference visibility, we obtain a parameter-free verification of the experimental data and a numerical simulation of the achievable key rates. These findings are beneficial to other applications making use of GS lasers, including random number generation and standard QKD.
Security certification of quantum key distribution (QKD) systems under practical conditions is necessary for social deployment. This article focused on the transmitter, and, in particular, investigated the intensity fluctuation of the optical pulses emitted by a gain-switched semiconductor laser used in QKD systems implementing decoy-BB84 protocol. A large intensity fluctuation was observed for low excitation, showing strong negative correlation between the adjacent pulses, which would affect the final key rate. The fluctuation decreased and the correlation disappeared as excitation increased. Simulation with rate equations successfully reproduced the experimental results and revealed that the large fluctuation originates from an intrinsic instability of gain-switched lasers driven periodically at a rate comparable to the inverse of carrier lifetime, as in GHz-clock QKD systems. Methods for further reduction of the intensity fluctuation were also discussed.
Quantum key distribution (QKD) allows two distant parties to share a secret key and realizes a communication with information-theoretic security by combining it with one-time-pad encryption.Since the Bennett-Brassard 1984 (BB84) protocol was proposed, a large number of researches on QKD have been conducted from both aspects of theory and implementations.For implementations of QKD, weak coherent pulses (WCP) are heavily used as optical signals because they are easily generated by typical lasers and attenuators.The security for QKD with WCP has been also studied along the development of the implementations.In this thesis, the security analysis of the QKD with WCP is considered and further developed from two aspects.First, the security of the differential-quadrature-phase-shift (DQPS) protocol is proved.The DQPS protocol has essentially the same set up as the phase-encoding BB84 (PE-BB84) protocol, which is one of the most frequently demonstrated protocols.Since the known proof techniques for the BB84 protocol is not directly applicable, a modified approach is developed which is suitable for the DQPS protocol.As a result, the advantage of the DQPS protocol in the key generation rate over the PE-BB84 protocol is shown in the asymptotic limit where the size of communication data is assumed to be infinite.Second, a new method for security analysis with finite-key size is proposed as a suitable method for QKD protocols using WCP.Differently from the current method based on simple random sampling, the proposed method relies on Bernoulli sampling, which is associated with binomial distribution.The security of the BB84 protocol is proved by using the Bernoulli-sampling method, enabling a simpler analysis with a smaller number of parameters to be estimated compared to the method with simple random sampling.The required number of detected signals to generate a secret key is shown to be smaller than 10 4 , which is drastic improvement from the number ∼ 10 7 obtained in the previous result.The proposed method is also applied to the DQPS protocol, and its advantage over the PE-BB84 protocol is certified even in the finite-key regime.i