Accession Number:

AD1032250

Title:

High-Rate Field Demonstration of Large-Alphabet Quantum Key Distribution

Descriptive Note:

Technical Report

Corporate Author:

MASSACHUSETTS INST OF TECH LEXINGTON LEXINGTON United States

Personal Author(s):

• Lee,Catherine
• Dixon,Benjamin P.
• Steinbrecher,Gregory R.
• Hamilton,Scott A.
• Bunandar,Darius
• Zhang,Zheshen
• Wong,Wong N.
• Shapiro,Jeffrey H.
• Englund,Dirk

Report Date:

2016-10-12

Pagination or Media Count:

9.0

Abstract:

Quantum key distribution QKD enables secure symmetric key exchange for information-theoretically secure communication via one-time-pad encryption. QKD also enables frequent re-keying of symmetric block ciphers. A goal for QKD in both settings is to increase the secret-key generation rate. In metro-scale links, the detectors limit the rates attainable by single-photon-based QKD schemes the long reset time compared to the detection timing jitter of even advanced single-photon detector technologies caps the maximum secret-key rate for binary-encoded systems below what the optical channel could support. For a given detector technology, this cap can be raised by encoding photons in high-dimensional basis states qudits instead of qubits, so that each detected photon yields more information than would be possible under binary encoding 3. Here, we demonstrate a record QKD rate for three different channel losses using a new prepare-and-measure high-speed, large-alphabet QKD protocol, including the firstfield demonstration of large-alphabet QKD.

Descriptors:

• quantum key distribution
• quantum cryptography
• modulation
• detection
• cryptography
• detectors
• probability
• coding

Subject Categories:

• Quantum Theory and Relativity

Distribution Statement:

APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE