High-Rate Field Demonstration of Large-Alphabet Quantum Key Distribution
Abstract
Quantum key distribution exploits the quantum nature of light to share provably secure keys, allowing secure communication in the presence of an eavesdropper. It commonly relies on detecting single photons, but the secret-key generation rates are often limited in practice by currently available detection hardware. We introduce a quantum key distribution protocol that uses high dimensional temporal encoding to boost the secret-key rate by increasing the secure information yield per detected photon. We achieve a record secret-key rate and also perform the first field demonstration of large-alphabet quantum key distribution. This demonstrates a new, practical way to optimize secret-key rates and marks an important step towards transmission of high dimensional quantum states in deployed networks.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Dec 08, 2016
- Accession Number
- AD1030436
Entities
People
- Catherine Lee
- Darius Bunander
- Dirk Englund
- Franco N. Wong
- Gregory R. Steinbrecher
- Jeffrey H Shapiro
- P. Ben Dixon
- Scott A. Hamilton
- Zheshen Zhang
Organizations
- MIT Lincoln Laboratory