Frequency-bin-encoded entanglement-based quantum key distribution in a reconfigurable frequency-multiplexed network

verfasst von: Anahita Khodadad Kashi, Michael Kues
Abstract: Large-scale quantum networks require dynamic and resource-efficient solutions to reduce system complexity with maintained security and performance to support growing number of users over large distances. Current encoding schemes including time-bin, polarization, and orbital angular momentum, suffer from the lack of reconfigurability and thus scalability issues. Here, we demonstrate the first-time implementation of frequency-bin-encoded entanglement-based quantum key distribution and a reconfigurable distribution of entanglement using frequency-bin encoding. Specifically, we demonstrate a novel scalable frequency-bin basis analyzer module that allows for a passive random basis selection as a crucial step in quantum protocols, and importantly equips each user with a single detector rather than four detectors. This minimizes massively the resource overhead, reduces the dark count contribution, vulnerability to detector side-channel attacks, and the detector imbalance, hence providing an enhanced security. Our approach offers an adaptive frequency-multiplexing capability to increase the number of channels without hardware overhead, enabling increased secret key rate and reconfigurable multi-user operations. In perspective, our approach enables dynamic resource-minimized quantum key distribution among multiple users across diverse network topologies, and facilitates scalability to large-scale quantum networks.
Organisationseinheit(en): Institut für Photonik
PhoenixD: Simulation, Fabrikation und Anwendung optischer Systeme
Typ: Artikel
Journal: Light: Science and Applications
Band: 14
ISSN: 2095-5545
Publikationsdatum: 16.01.2025
Publikationsstatus: Elektronisch veröffentlicht (E-Pub)
Peer-reviewed: Ja
ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete: Elektronische, optische und magnetische Materialien, Atom- und Molekularphysik sowie Optik
Elektronische Version(en): https://doi.org/10.1038/s41377-024-01696-8 (Zugang: Offen)