• Rapid Communication

Experimental round-robin differential phase-shift quantum key distribution

Yu-Huai Li, Yuan Cao, Hui Dai, Jin Lin, Zhen Zhang, Wei Chen, Yu Xu, Jian-Yu Guan, Sheng-Kai Liao, Juan Yin, Qiang Zhang, Xiongfeng Ma, Cheng-Zhi Peng, and Jian-Wei Pan
Phys. Rev. A 93, 030302(R) – Published 23 March 2016
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Abstract

In conventional quantum key distribution (QKD) protocols, security is guaranteed by estimating the amount of leaked information. Such estimation tends to overrate, leading to a fundamental threshold of the bit error rate, which becomes a bottleneck of practical QKD development. This bottleneck is broken through by the recent work of round-robin differential phase-shift (RRDPS) protocol, which eliminates the fundamental threshold of the bit error rate. The key challenge for the implementation of the RRDPS scheme lies in the realization of a variable-delay Mach–Zehnder interferometer, which requires active and random choice of many delays. By designing an optical system with multiple switches and employing an active phase stabilization technology, we successfully construct a variable-delay interferometer with 127 actively selectable delays. With this measurement, we experimentally demonstrate the RRDPS protocol and obtain a final key rate of 15.54 bps with a total loss of 18 dB and an error rate of 8.9%.

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  • Received 20 July 2015

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.93.030302

©2016 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Quantum Information, Science & Technology

Authors & Affiliations

Yu-Huai Li1,2, Yuan Cao1,2, Hui Dai1,2, Jin Lin1,2, Zhen Zhang3, Wei Chen1,2, Yu Xu1,2, Jian-Yu Guan1,2, Sheng-Kai Liao1,2, Juan Yin1,2, Qiang Zhang1,2, Xiongfeng Ma3, Cheng-Zhi Peng1,2, and Jian-Wei Pan1,2

  • 1Shanghai Branch, National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at Microscale and Department of Modern Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Shanghai 201315, China
  • 2Synergetic Innovation Center of Quantum Information and Quantum Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China
  • 3Center for Quantum Information, Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China

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Issue

Vol. 93, Iss. 3 — March 2016

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