High Speed Fiber-Based Quantum Key Distribution using Polarization Encoding

Abstract

We have implemented a quantum key distribution (QKD) system with polarization encoding at 850 nm over 1 km of optical fiber. The high-speed management of the bit-stream, generation of random numbers and processing of the sifting algorithm are all handled by a pair of custom data handling circuit boards. As a complete system using a clock rate of 1.25 Gbit/s, it produces sifted keys at a rate of 1.1 Mb/s with an error rate lower than 1.3% while operating at a transmission rate of 312.5 Mbit/s and a mean photon number micron = 0.1. With a number of proposed improvements this system has a potential for a higher key rate without an elevated error rate.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jul 01, 2005
Accession Number
ADA511116

Entities

People

  • Alan Mink
  • Anastase Nakassis
  • Barry Hershman
  • Carl Williams
  • Charles Clark
  • Joshua Bienfang
  • Lijun Ma
  • Ronald F. Boisvert
  • Xiao Tang

Organizations

  • National Institute of Standards and Technology

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Advanced Electronics
  • Materials and Manufacturing Processes

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Abstracts
  • Circuit Boards
  • Coding
  • Cryptography
  • Data Rate
  • Detection
  • Fibers
  • Field Programmable Gate Arrays
  • Local Area Networks
  • Losses
  • Operating Systems
  • Optical Fibers
  • Polarization
  • Printed Circuits
  • Quantum Key Distribution
  • Repetition Rate
  • Standards

Fields of Study

  • Computer science
  • Physics

Readers

  • Image Processing and Computer Vision.
  • Quantum Dot Semiconductor Device Photonics and Graphene Optoelectronic Materials and THz Physics.
  • Radio communications and signal processing.

Technology Areas

  • Quantum Computing
  • Quantum Science - Quantum Key Distribution