To address the low qubit efficiency and high user-side operational complexity in existing quantum key agreement schemes, this paper proposes a high-efficiency and lightweight quantum key agreement scheme based on Bell states. The scheme is constructed upon a time-reversed EPR architecture, in which a quantum server performs entangled-state preparation and Bell state measurement. Furthermore, a bidirectional decoy photon mechanism is incorporated into the architecture to achieve eavesdropping detection. By exploiting the completeness and orthogonality of the Bell basis, the scheme introduces an encoding mechanism based on local Pauli operations, enabling a single Bell state to carry 2 bits of key information and thereby realizing dense coding, which improves qubit efficiency. Meanwhile, users are only required to perform single-qubit operations, which reduces the quantum operational requirements on the user side. Based on the properties of Bell states, this paper derives the mapping relationship between local Pauli operations and Bell state measurement outcomes. Experimental results on the SpinQ Gemini quantum computing platform are consistent with the theoretical analysis, verifying the feasibility of the proposed scheme. In addition, security analysis shows that, owing to the bidirectional decoy photon mechanism, the scheme can resist various quantum attacks. The proposed scheme combines high efficiency with a lightweight implementation, reducing quantum hardware requirements on the user side and network deployment costs, thereby providing a cost-effective solution for practical quantum key agreement.
To address the low qubit efficiency and high user-side operational complexity in existing quantum key agreement schemes, this paper proposes a high-efficiency and lightweight quantum key agreement scheme based on Bell states. The scheme is constructed upon a time-reversed EPR architecture, in which a quantum server performs entangled-state preparation and Bell state measurement. Furthermore, a bidirectional decoy photon mechanism is incorporated into the architecture to achieve eavesdropping detection. By exploiting the completeness and orthogonality of the Bell basis, the scheme introduces an encoding mechanism based on local Pauli operations, enabling a single Bell state to carry 2 bits of key information and thereby realizing dense coding, which improves qubit efficiency. Meanwhile, users are only required to perform single-qubit operations, which reduces the quantum operational requirements on the user side. Based on the properties of Bell states, this paper derives the mapping relationship between local Pauli operations and Bell state measurement outcomes. Experimental results on the SpinQ Gemini quantum computing platform are consistent with the theoretical analysis, verifying the feasibility of the proposed scheme. In addition, security analysis shows that, owing to the bidirectional decoy photon mechanism, the scheme can resist various quantum attacks. The proposed scheme combines high efficiency with a lightweight implementation, reducing quantum hardware requirements on the user side and network deployment costs, thereby providing a cost-effective solution for practical quantum key agreement.
We propose a theoretical scheme for secure quantum key distribution network following the ideas in quantum dense coding. In this scheme, the server of the network provides the service for preparing and measuring the Bell states, and the users encode the states with local unitary operations. For preventing the server from eavesdropping, we design a decoy when the particle is transmitted between the users. The scheme has high capacity as one particle carries two bits of information and its efficiency for qubits approaches 100%. Moreover, it is unnecessary for the users to store the quantum states, which makes this scheme more convenient in applications than others.
We propose a theoretical scheme for secure quantum key distribution network following the ideas m quantum aense coding. In this scheme, the server of the network provides the service for preparing and measuring the Bell states,and the users encode the states with local unitary operations. For preventing the server from eavesdropping, we design a decoy when the particle is transmitted between the users. The scheme has high capacity as one particle carries two bits of information and its efficiency for qubits approaches 100%. Moreover, it is unnecessary for the users to store the quantum states, which makes this scheme more convenient in applications than others.
Bidirectional quantum key distribution (QKD) protocols face persistent challenges related to classical disclosure, confinement of the signal space to predictable subspaces, and limited detectability under substitution or entanglement-swapping attacks. In this work, we present a Bell-state extension of the Loop-Back QKD architecture that improves efficiency and detectability while preserving its defining feature of a simplified, measurement-free remote terminal. The protocol employs entangled Bell states together with deterministic local Pauli encoding at the remote node. A central element is that Alice privately prepares and knows the initial Bell state, which serves as a hidden reference enabling her to interpret the Bell-state transition induced by Bob, while preventing an adversary from reconstructing the encoding without access to this reference. By exploiting both intra- and inter-family Bell transitions, the scheme expands the effective signal space beyond the subspace restrictions of earlier two-way protocols. Alice performs a Bell-state measurement to deterministically infer Bob's operation without any basis sifting. Although the traveling subsystem remains locally maximally mixed, concealing the initial Bell family amplifies disturbance under separable substitution strategies, yielding an intrinsic detection probability of approximately 3/4 per round. From an efficiency perspective, the protocol lifts the intrinsic post-selection limitation of single-qubit Loop-Back schemes: the effective throughput is bounded only by the Bell-state measurement success probability, reaching up to 50% in linear-optical implementations. These features make the proposed scheme particularly suitable for mobile or edge-based QKD scenarios, where passive remote nodes must operate under high loss and limited interaction times.
In response to the demand for identity authentication in quantum secure direct communication, this paper proposes a quantum secure direct communication scheme based on a mixture of single photon and Bell state, by combining the bidirectional identity authentication. Before communication begins, both parties share a series of secret information to prepare a series of single photon and Bell state particles. Encoding four single photons and four Bell states yields eight types of encoded information, followed by identity authentication. The first step in identity authentication is to use a single photon to verify the legitimacy of the receiver. If the error exceeds the given threshold, it indicates the presence of eavesdropping. Otherwise, the channel is safe. Then, Bell state particles are used to verify the legitimacy of the sender, and the threshold is also used to determine whether there is eavesdropping. The present method is the same as previous one. If the error rate is higher than the given threshold, it indicates the existence of third-party eavesdropping. Otherwise, it indicates that the channel is secure. As for the specific verification method, it will be explained in detail in the article. Afterwards, Bell state particles are mixed with a single photon as a transmission carrier, and eavesdropping detection particles are added whenever the quantum state is sent. However, once the eavesdropper intercepts the transmitted particles, owing to incomplete information obtained, the eavesdropper is unable to recover the original information, and the eavesdropping behavior will be immediately detected, thus terminating communication. In this scheme, single photon and Bell states are fully utilized, and hybrid communication can effectively improve transmission efficiency, encoding capability, and quantum bit utilization. Security analysis shows that this scheme can resist common external and internal attacks such as interception/measurement replay attacks, auxiliary particle attacks, and identity impersonation attacks. The analysis of efficiency and encoding capacity shows that the transmission efficiency of this scheme is 1, the encoding capacity is 3 bits per state, and the quantum bit utilization rate is 1. Compared with other schemes, this scheme has significant advantages because it uses different particles for bidirectional authentication, making it more difficult for attackers to crack, and thus it has higher security than traditional schemes.
Vulnerabilities and imperfections of single-photon detectors have been shown to compromise security for quantum key distribution (QKD). The measurement-device-independent QKD (MDI-QKD) appears to be the most appealing solution to solve the issues. However, in practice one faces severe obstacles of having significantly lower key generation rate, difficult two photon interferences, and remote synchronization etc. In this letter, we propose a highly efficient and simple quantum key distribution scheme to remove all of these drawbacks. Our proposal can be implemented with only small modifications over the standard decoy BB84 system. Remarkably it enjoys both the advantages of high key generation rate (being almost two orders of magnitude higher than that based on conventional MDI-QKD) comparable to the normal decoy system, and security against any detector side channel attacks. Most favorably one can achieve complete Bell state measurements with resort to single photon interference, which reduces significantly experimental costs. Our approach enables utilization of high speed and efficient secure communication, particularly in real-life scenario of both metropolitan and intercity QKD network, with an attack free fashion from arbitrary detector side channels.
Smart grids leverage smart terminal devices to collect information from the user side, achieving accurate load forecasting and optimized dispatching of power systems, effectively improving power supply efficiency and reliability while reducing energy consumption. However, the development of quantum technology poses severe challenges to the communication security of smart grids that rely on traditional cryptography. To address this security risk in the quantum era, this paper draws on the core idea of quantum private comparison and proposes a quantum-secure identity authentication and key agreement scheme suitable for smart grids. This scheme uses Bell states as quantum resources, combines hash functions and XOR operations, and can adapt to resource-constrained terminal devices. Through a security proof, it verifies the scheme's ability to resist various attacks; the experimental results further show that the scheme still has good robustness in different noise environments, providing a feasible technical path for the secure communication of smart grids in the quantum environment and having clear practical engineering value.