We have implemented an experimental setup in order to demonstrate the feasibility of time-coding protocols for quantum key distribution. Alice produces coherent 20-ns faint pulses of light at 853 nm. They are sent to Bob with delay 0 ns (encoding bit 0) or 10 ns (encoding bit 1). Bob directs at random the received pulses to two different arms. In the first one, a 300 ps resolution Si photon counter allows Bob to precisely measure the detection times of each photon in order to establish the key. Comparing them with the emission times of the pulses sent by Alice allows one to evaluate the quantum bit error rate (QBER). The minimum obtained QBER is 1.62%. The possible loss of coherence in the setup can be exploited by Eve to eavesdrop the line. Therefore, the second arm of Bob setup is a Mach-Zehnder interferometer with a 10 ns propagation delay between the two paths. Contrast measurement of the output beams allows one to measure the autocorrelation function of the received pulses that characterizes their average coherence. In the case of an ideal setup, the value expected with the pulses sent by Alice is 0.576. The experimental value of the pulses autocorrelation function is found to be 0.541. Knowing the resulting loss of coherence and the measured QBER, one can evaluate the mutual information between Alice and Eve and the mutual information between Alice and Bob, in the case of intercept-resend attacks and in the case of attacks with intrication. With our values, Bob has an advantage on Eve of 0.43 bit per pulse. The maximum possible QBER corresponding to equal informations for Bob and Eve is 5.8%. With the usual attenuation of fibres at 850 nm, it shows that secure key distribution is possible up to a distance of 2.75 km, which is sufficient for local links.
We have implemented an experimental setup in order to demonstrate the feasibility of time-coding protocols for quantum key distribution. Alice produces coherent 20-ns faint pulses of light at 853 nm. They are sent to Bob with delay 0 ns (encoding bit 0) or 10 ns (encoding bit 1). Bob directs at random the received pulses to two different arms. In the first one, a 300 ps resolution Si photon counter allows Bob to precisely measure the detection times of each photon in order to establish the key. Comparing them with the emission times of the pulses sent by Alice allows one to evaluate the quantum bit error rate (QBER). The minimum obtained QBER is 1.62%. The possible loss of coherence in the setup can be exploited by Eve to eavesdrop the line. Therefore, the second arm of Bob setup is a Mach-Zehnder interferometer with a 10 ns propagation delay between the two paths. Contrast measurement of the output beams allows one to measure the autocorrelation function of the received pulses that characterizes their average coherence. In the case of an ideal setup, the value expected with the pulses sent by Alice is 0.576. The experimental value of the pulses autocorrelation function is found to be 0.541. Knowing the resulting loss of coherence and the measured QBER, one can evaluate the mutual information between Alice and Eve and the mutual information between Alice and Bob, in the case of intercept-resend attacks and in the case of attacks with intrication. With our values, Bob has an advantage on Eve of 0.43 bit per pulse. The maximum possible QBER corresponding to equal informations for Bob and Eve is 5.8%. With the usual attenuation of fibres at 850 nm, it shows that secure key distribution is possible up to a distance of 2.75 km, which is sufficient for local links.
We propose quantum key distribution protocols based on coherent single-photon optical pulses with duration T and with minimum time-frequency uncertainty. The pulses are sent with possible delays (e.g., 0, T∕2) that are used to code the information (e.g., bit 0, bit 1) and that are shorter than the pulse width. Therefore, the time detection of the photons may result in a ambiguity of the delay evaluation for a potential eavesdropper. The duration of the received pulses is controlled thanks to a contrast measurement using an interferometer. A quantum formalism is given, allowing us to model the transmission of the key and the consequences of a possible eavesdropping. Two protocols are proposed and discussed. The first one involves two states and is limited to channels with losses lower than 50%. The second one involves four states, which prevents the eavesdropper from exploiting the losses of the line. The security of each protocol is evaluated as a function of channel losses, quantum bit error rate, and contrast loss in the case of intercept-resend attacks. It is applied to situations where photocounters dark counts are the main limitation of the system. The resulting maximum propagation distance allowing secure communication is evaluated.
We present an experimental demonstration of the 4-state differential-phase-shift quantum key distribution (4S-DPS-QKD) over a 30 km quantum channel with two different approaches, namely path superposition and time-bin superposition. 4S-DPS-QKD offers enhanced security compared to the pulse-train DPS-QKD against individual attacks. We show that the key generation efficiency, and security, improve with an increase in the number of path delays or time bin superpositions. Our implementation establishes an ease in implementation of the time-bin superposition approach, over the path superposition approach. The sender (Alice) uses a photon in a superposition state, corresponding to either 3 spatial paths or temporal bins. In the temporal case, Alice uses a weak coherent source (WCS) with a pulse width of 3 ns, that we interpret as a single wave packet comprising of three time-bins of 1 ns each.. Alice encodes her random key bit [0,1] as a random phase [0,pi] between |a> and |b>, and |b> and |c>, i.e. successive paths or time bins of the WCS, with mean photon number < n>=0.1, and pulse widths of 0.5 ns. The phase encoded bits are then transmitted over a single mode optical fibre. Both path and timb-bin implementations follow similar setups beyond the transmitter. At the receiver, a delay line interferometer (DLI) introduces a delay of 1 ns, measures < a|b> and< b|c>, and recovers the phase introduced by Alice as a detection at one of the 2 output ports of the DLI with a time resolution of 50 ps using a time-to-digital convertor (TDC). Our experiments have yielded a QBER of 21% for path superposition and 17% for time-bin superposition. We thus establish the equivalence of the two approaches, and note that the time-bin approach is easily extended to more than 3 time-bins, and an increased secure key rate.
Summary form only given. An alternative protocol to polarization coding or phase coding is proposed for quantum key distribution. It is based on a time coding technique which is expected to be robust against propagation medium disturbances. The information is coded on one photon pulses of duration T and with a chosen time delay with respect to a time reference. The possible delays are chosen by Alice so that possible pulses may overlap. Bob uses photon counters with a time resolution much better than the pulse duration and he measures the detection time with respect to the reference. He can perform only one measurement which may lead to an ambiguity on the delay evaluation.
Quantum-key distribution (QKD) schemes employing quantum communication links are typically based on the transmission of weak optical pulses over optical fibers to setup a secret key between the transmitting and receiving nodes. Alice transmits optically a random bit stream to the receiver (Bob) through the photon polarizations or the quadrature components of the lightwaves associated with the photons, with a secret key remaining implicitly embedded therein. However, during the above transmission, some eavesdropper (Eve) might attempt to tap the passing-by photons from the optical fiber links to extract the key. In one of the popular QKD schemes, along with signal pulses, some additional decoy pulses are transmitted by Alice, while Eve might use photon-number splitting (PNS) for eavesdropping. In a typical PNS scheme, (i) the optical pulses with single photon are blocked by Eve, (ii) from the optical pulses with two photons, one photon is retained by Eve to carry out eavesdropping operation and the other is retransmitted to Bob, and (iii) all other pulses with more than two photons are retransmitted by Eve to Bob without retaining any photon from them. Extensive theoretical research has been carried out on such QKD schemes, by employing information-theoretic approach along with computer simulations and experimental studies. We present a novel event-by-event impairment enumeration approach to evaluate the overall performance of one such QKD scheme analytically with due consideration to the physical layer of the quantum communication links. The proposed approach monitors the impairments of the propagating optical pulses event-by-event at all possible locations along the optical fiber link using statistical approach, and provides estimates of the realizable key generation rate, while assuring an adequate yield ratio between signal and decoy pulses for the detection of possible eavesdropping.
Quantum key distribution is one of the essential developments to reduce the vulnerability in the security of the systems due to the emergence of quantum computers. As long as large-scale quantum computers emerge, all the systems will be vulnerable to attack. To secure the communication, we can use quantum key distribution protocols in the near future. In this work, I have experimentally verified the BB84 protocol with an eavesdropper. We have used a classical channel to send polarization states of light. Our source is a readily available He-Ne laser (632.8nm). To send secret Information in a secure way, we use Quantum key distribution. Sender Alice sends randomly chosen polarization states of light to Bob. The states Alice sends are |H>,|V>,|D>, and |A>, and similarly, Bob also selects some random basis and detects this Information. In this experiment, |H>,|V> states belong to the '+' basis and |D>,|A> on the 'X' basis. Detecting |H>,|D> states at the detector is considered as '1' and detecting |V>,|A> represents the '0' bit as the output. Alice and Bob can choose the basis randomly. We got these | H>,|V>,|D>, and |A> states by rotating the half-wave plate at angles respectively 0°,90°,45°, and -45°. We used a motorized rotator to rotate the two half-wave plates, one at Alice's side and one at Bob's side, to select the basis and generate these states. The motorized rotator runs on a python code. Python code is designed in such a way that it can generate random bits and can run Alice and Bob parts simultaneously. A polarized beam splitter is used just before the detector to split the beam into | H> and |V> states with 100% intensity at one detector and 0% at the other and |D> and |A> states with 50:50 intensity. Therefore we used one half-wave plate just before the PBS, which can convert |H> and |V> states into |D> and |A> states when we rotate at these particular angles. Using this, we can detect |D> and |A> states with 100% intensity at one detector and 0% at the other. Based upon the basic choices of Alice and Bob, at the receiver part, Bob will receive the bits. At the end of the process, both parties will verify the basis. When the basis is matching, they will keep those bits, and which are not matching, they will discard them. The successful bits will become the encryption key. I did this experiment by sending 1000 bits, and 452 bits among them were successful. For the security analysis of this protocol, we implemented a third-person Eve who tries to steal the Information Alice sends to Bob. Eve used one Beam splitter to take half part of the light intensity and sent another half to Bob. Eve's part has one 50:50 beam splitter, which splits the beam into two. Then, one beam goes to a PBS, then to the detectors, and the other beam goes to a setup that has HWP and PBS, then to the detectors. In this experiment, Eve is successful in stealing the Information correctly. As we are using classical light, which has a huge number of photons, anyone can take some photons and execute a photon number splitting attack; the security of this process is very low. We need a single-photon source and a single photon detector to get total security from this protocol. Right now, I have done this experiment with the available pieces of equipment I have. When the needed types of equipment are available to me, I can implement the single-photon QKD experiment also. After the experiment, we realized that the superposition of states always holds in this experiment, but states do not collapse, as we are not performing the quantum measurement. Also, I have implemented the QKD protocol in the IBM Quantum lab, where Alice sends 1000 bits to Bob, and 474 bits among them were successful. Also, Eve’s interception was detected successfully.