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Optics Communications

Research on polarization compensation for practical satellite-based quantum key distribution

Wenbin Luo, Yang Li, Yuhuai Li, Xue-Ying Tao, Haoze Chen, An Hua, Wenqi Cai, Juan Yin, Ji-Gang Ren, Sheng‐Kai Liao, Cheng-Zhi Peng

Published Jul 30, 2024• 8 citations
Publisher
DOI
10.1016/j.optcom.2024.130925

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Polarization instability is a critical challenge for polarization-entangled satellite quantum key distribution (QKD), where atmospheric effects and platform motion continuously distort photon polarization. To maintain entanglement fidelity, these transformations must be accurately identified and compensated prior to detection. In this work, a compact and fast polarization-compensation approach based on liquid-crystal (LC) variable retarders is presented, using a co-propagating classical reference signal (beacon) for real-time polarization tracking. An LC-based polarimeter is implemented, and its performance is evaluated using both direct and Fourier-based Stokes parameter reconstruction. Experimental results indicate that accurate polarization estimation can be achieved with a limited number of measurements, enabling a favorable trade-off between speed and precision. The impact of liquid-crystal switching dynamics is also analyzed, highlighting the importance of selecting appropriate operating conditions for real-time applications. In addition, the effect of polarimetric inaccuracies on QKD performance is assessed through simulations of an entanglement-based protocol. The results show that only a moderate increase in quantum-bit error rate is introduced, while remaining compatible with secure key distribution. These findings demonstrate that LC-based polarization control represents an efficient and practical solution for real-time compensation in satellite QKD systems.

quant-pharXiv:2512.11714•Dec 15, 2025•0 citations
In practical satellite-based quantum key distribution (QKD) systems, the preparation and transmission of polarization-encoding photons suffer from complex environmental effects and high channel loss. Consequently, the hinge to enhancing the secure key rate (SKR) lies in achieving robust, low-error, and high-speed polarization modulation. Although the schemes that enable self-compensation demonstrate remarkable robustness, their modulation speed is limited to around 2 GHz to prevent the interaction between the electrical signal and the reverse optical pulses. Here, we utilize the non-reciprocity of the lithium niobate modulators and eliminate the modulation on the reverse optical pulses. This characteristic is widely available in the radio-frequency band, allowing the modulation speed to no longer be limited by the self-compensating optics and enabling further increases. The measured average intrinsic quantum bit error rate of the four polarization states at 10 GHz system repetition frequency is as low as 0.53% over 10 min without any compensation. The simulation results show that our scheme can maintain a SKR of about 5 kbps even at the extreme communication distances between the satellite and the earth. Our work can be efficiently applied in high-speed, high-loss satellite-based quantum communication scenarios.
Satellite networks and quantum communications offer complementary opportunities for enhanced operations. Quantum communications provide security for the transmissions between satellites and ground stations; while the free-space link of satellite networks provide the potential of long distance transmission of quantum bits (qubit) for space communications. However, with the promising advantages of the two approaches, challenges remain to fully develop quantum-based satellite communications such as robust and reliable information detection which is difficult to achieve due to the movement of satellites. In this paper, a tracking algorithm is proposed for polarization-encoded quantum satellite communications where polarization states are used to determine the bit transfer between the transmitter and receiver. The polarization tracking is essential for the decoding of a qubit and the quantum key distribution (QKD). A practical channel model for free-space quantum communications is adopted in this paper. With the estimated polarization, a novel dynamic polarization compensation scheme is also proposed. The results show that our methods can accurately estimate the polarization, providing much lower quantum bit error rate (QBER) by compensation, as compared with the direct qubit detection without polarization tracking and compensation scheme.
Polarization instability is a critical challenge for polarization-entangled satellite quantum key distribution (QKD), where atmospheric effects and platform motion continuously distort photon polarization. To maintain entanglement fidelity, these transformations must be accurately identified and compensated prior to detection. In this work, a compact and fast polarization-compensation approach based on liquid-crystal (LC) variable retarders is presented, using a co-propagating classical reference signal (beacon) for real-time polarization tracking. An LC-based polarimeter is implemented, and its performance is evaluated using both direct and Fourier-based Stokes parameter reconstruction. Experimental results indicate that accurate polarization estimation can be achieved with a limited number of measurements, enabling a favorable trade-off between speed and precision. The impact of liquid-crystal switching dynamics is also analyzed, highlighting the importance of selecting appropriate operating conditions for real-time applications. In addition, the effect of polarimetric inaccuracies on QKD performance is assessed through simulations of an entanglement-based protocol. The results show that only a moderate increase in quantum-bit error rate is introduced, while remaining compatible with secure key distribution. These findings demonstrate that LC-based polarization control represents an efficient and practical solution for real-time compensation in satellite QKD systems.