This work is the development and analysis of the recently proposed quantum cryptographic protocol, based on the use of the two-mode coherently correlated states. The protocol is supplied with the cryptographic control procedures. The quantum noise influence on the channel error properties is examined. State detection features are proposed.
We report quantum communications channel using photon number correlated twin beams. The twin beams are generated from a nondegenerate optical parametric oscillator, and the photon number difference is used to encode the signal. The bit error rate of our system will be 0.067 by using the twin beams comparing with 0.217 by using the coherent state as the signal carrier.
Based on the novel idea of twin-field quantum key distribution, we present a sending-or-not-sending twin-field fault tolerant quantum key distribution protocol. Our protocol can access a secure distance longer than 700 km even though the misalignment error rate is $15\%$. In the case of zero alignment error, our protocol can exceeds a secure distance of 800 km. Thanks to the novel idea of TF-QKD !
Twin field quantum key distribution promises high key rates at long distance to beat the rate distance limit. Here, applying the sending or not sending TF QKD protocol, we experimentally demonstrate a secure key distribution breaking the absolute key rate limit of repeaterless QKD over 509 km, 408 km ultra-low loss optical fibre and 350 km standard optical fibre. Two independent lasers are used as the source with remote frequency locking technique over 500 km fiber distance; Practical optical fibers are used as the optical path with appropriate noise filtering; And finite key effects are consi…
This work is the development and analysis of the recently proposed quantum cryptographic protocol, based on the use of the two-mode coherently correlated states. The protocol is supplied with the cyrptographic control procedures. The channel error properties and stability against eavesdropping are examined. State detection features are proposed.
The data transmission protocol, based on the use of a strongly correlated pair of laser beams, is proposed. The properties of the corresponding states are described in detail. The protocol is based on the strong correlation of photon numbers in both beams in each measurement. The protocol stability against the interception attempts is analyzed.
The channel capacity between two users is affected by relativistic effects. Under the presence of a fixed noise at the receiver, there appears an asymmetry between "slowly aging" and "fast aging" observers which can be used to have private communication transmission. We discuss some models for users inside gravitational wells and in the twin paradox scenario.
Using a nondegenerate four-wave mixing process based on a double-$Λ$ scheme in hot cesium vapor, we generate quantum correlated twin beams with a maximum intensity-difference squeezing of 6.5 dB. The substantially improved squeezing can be mainly attributed to very good frequency and phase-difference stability between the pump and probe beams in our experiment. Intensity-difference squeezing can be observed within a wide experimental parameter range, which guarantees its robust generation. Since this scheme produces multi-spatial-mode twin beams at the Cs $D_{1}$ line, it is of interest for ex…
We experimentally demonstrate that we can detect correlated errors in a twin-field quantum key distribution (TFQKD) system by using a technique that is related to self-consistent tomography. We implement a TFQKD system based on a fiber-Sagnac loop, in which Alice and Bob encode information in the phase of weak coherent states that propagate in opposite directions around the loop. These states interfere as they exit the loop and are detected by a third party, Charlie, who reports the results of their measurements to Alice and Bob. We find that it is possible for Alice and Bob to detect correlat…
Photon-pair sources based on thin film lithium niobate on insulator technology have a great potential for integrated optical quantum information processing. We report on such a source of correlated twin-photon pairs generated by spontaneous parametric down conversion in a silicon nitride (SiN) rib loaded thin film periodically poled lithium niobate (LN) waveguide. The generated photon pairs have a wavelength centred at 1560\,nm compatible with present telecom infrastructure, a large bandwidth (21\,THz) and a brightness of $\sim 2.5\times 10^5$\,pairs/s/mW/GHz. The photons are correlated and ex…
We propose and evaluate a method to construct a quantum correlated twin atom laser using a pumped and damped Bose-Hubbard inline trimer which can operate in a stationary regime. With pumping via a source condensate filling the middle well and damping using either an electron beam or optical means at the two end wells, we show that bipartite quantum correlations build up between the ends of the chain, and that these can be measured either in situ or in the outcoupled beams. While nothing similar to our system has yet been achieved experimentally, recent advances mean that it should be practical…
We investigated the intensity noise spectra of the single beam of a pump-enhanced continuous-wave (cw) optical parametric oscillator (OPO), which was used to generate quantum correlated twin beams, as a function of the pump power. With a triply (pump-, signal-, and idler-) resonant cavity, the oscillation threshold of our OPO was about 8.5+/-1.3 mW and the measured slope conversion efficiency was 0.72+/-0.02. A twin beams with power of 240 mW were generated at pump power of 350 mW. The relaxation oscillation frequencies, which depend on the pump power, were observed when the pump power of OPO …
Quantum secret sharing (QSS) is essential for multiparty quantum communication, which is one of cornerstones in the future quantum internet. However, a linear rate-distance limitation severely constrains the secure key rate and transmission distance of QSS. Here, we present a practical QSS protocol among three participants based on the differential phase shift scheme and twin field ideas for the solution of high-efficiency multiparty communication task. In contrast to formerly proposed differential phase shift QSS protocol, our protocol can break the linear rate-distance bound, theoretically i…
We generate spatially multimode twin beams using 4-wave mixing in a hot atomic vapor in a phase-insensitive traveling-wave amplifier configuration. The far-field coherence area measured at 3.5 MHz is shown to be much smaller than the angular bandwidth of the process and bright twin images with independently quantum-correlated sub-areas can be generated with little distortion. The available transverse degrees of freedom form a high-dimensional Hilbert space which we use to produce quantum-correlated twin beams with finite orbital angular momentum.
The Sending-or-Not-Sending protocol of the twin-field quantum key distribution (TF-QKD) has its advantage of unconditional security proof under any coherent attack and fault tolerance to large misalignment error. So far this is the only coherent-state based TF-QKD protocol that has considered finite-key effect, the statistical fluctuations. Here we consider the complete finite-key effects for the protocol and we show by numerical simulation that the protocol with typical finite number of pulses in practice can produce unconditional secure final key under general attack, including all coherent …
Quantum metrology deals with improving the resolution of instruments that are otherwise limited by shot noise and it is therefore a promising avenue for enabling scientific breakthroughs. The advantage can be even more striking when quantum enhancement is combined with correlation techniques among several devices. Here, we present and realize a correlation interferometry scheme exploiting bipartite quantum correlated states injected in two independent interferometers. The scheme outperforms classical analogues in detecting a faint signal that may be correlated/uncorrelated between the two devi…
Uniaxial anisotropy in nonlinear birefringent crystals limits the efficiency of nonlinear optical interactions and breaks the spatial symmetry of light generated in the parametric down-conversion (PDC) process. Therefore, this effect is usually undesirable and must be compensated for. However, high gain may be used to overcome the destructive role of anisotropy and instead to use it for the generation of bright two-mode correlated twin-beams. In this work, we provide a rigorous theoretical description of the spatial properties of bright squeezed light in the presence of strong anisotropy. We i…
The basic principle of quantum mechanics guarantee the unconditional security of quantum key distribution (QKD) at the cost of inability of amplification of quantum state. As a result, despite remarkable progress in worldwide metropolitan QKD networks over the past decades, long haul fiber QKD network without trustful relay has not been achieved yet. Here, through sending-or-not-sending (SNS) protocol, we complete a twin field QKD (TF-QKD) and distribute secure keys without any trusted repeater over a 511 km long haul fiber trunk linking two distant metropolitans. Our secure key rate is around…
The sending-or-not-sending (SNS) protocol is one of the most major variants of the twin-field (TF) quantum key distribution (QKD) protocol and has been realized in a 511 km field fiber, the farthest field experiment to date. In practice, however, all decoy-state methods have unavoidable source errors, and the source errors may be non-random, which compromises the security condition of the existing TF-QKD protocols. In this study, we present a general approach for efficiently calculating the SNS protocol's secure key rate with source errors, by establishing the equivalent protocols through virt…
We demonstrate production of quantum correlated and entangled beams by second harmonic generation in a nonlinear resonator with two output ports. The output beams at wavelength 428.5 nm exhibit 0.9 dB of nonclassical intensity correlations and 0.3 dB of entanglement.
Twin-field (TF) quantum key distribution (QKD) was conjectured to beat the private capacity of a point-to-point QKD link by using single-photon interference in a central measuring station. This remarkable conjecture has recently triggered an intense research activity to prove its security. Here, we introduce a TF-type QKD protocol which is conceptually simpler than the original proposal. It relies on local phase randomization, instead of global phase randomization, which significantly simplifies its security analysis and is arguably less demanding experimentally. We demonstrate that the secure…
Quantum-correlated twin beams were generated from a triply resonant optical parametric oscillator with an a-cut KTP crystal pumped by a frequency-doubled diode laser. A total output of 5.1 mW was obtained in the classical-to-nonclassical-light conversion system driven by a 50-mW diode laser at 1080 nm. Quantum noise reduction of 4.3 dB (63%) in the intensity difference between the twin beams was successfully observed at the detection frequency of 3 MHz.
We have devised an experimentally realizable model generating twin beam states whose individual beam photon statistics are varied from thermal to Poissonian keeping the non-classical mode correlation intact. We have studied the usefulness of these states for loss measurement by considering three different estimators, comparing with the correlated thermal twin beam states generated from spontaneous parametric down conversion or four-wave mixing. We then incorporated the photon subtraction operation into the model and demonstrate their advantage in loss estimations with respect to un-subtracted …
Twin-field quantum key distribution (TF-QKD), which is immune to all possible detector side channel attacks, enables two remote legitimate users to perform secure communications without quantum repeaters. With the help of a central node, TF-QKD is expected to overcome the linear key-rate constraint using current technologies. However, the security of the former TF-QKD protocols relies on the hypothesis of infinite-key and stable sources. In this paper, we present the finite-key analysis of a practical decoy-state twin-field quantum key distribution with variant statistical fluctuation models. …
We propose a Heisenberg-limited quantum interferometer whose input is twin optical beams from which one or more photons have been indistinguishably subtracted. Such an interferometer can yield Heisenberg-limited performance while at the same time giving a direct fringe reading, unlike for the twin-beam input of the Holland-Burnett interferometer. We propose a feasible experimental realization using a photon-number correlated source, such as non-degenerate parametric down-conversion, and perform realistic analyses of performance in the presence of loss and detector inefficiency.
A laser-diode-pumped intracavity frequency-doubled Nd:YAP/KTP laser is presented. Over 110 mw of TEM00 single-frequency output power at 540-nm wavelength was obtained. The output green laser was employed to pump a semimonolithic nondegenerate optical parametric oscillator to produce intensity quantum correlated twin beams at 1080 nm, and the maximum quantum noise squeezing of 74 %(5.9 dB) on the intensity difference fluctuation between the twin beams is observed. The threshold was reduced and the stability was increased significantly when compared with similar lamp-pumped systems.
We present results of practical sending-or-not quantum key distribution. In real-life implementations, we need consider the following three requirements, a few different intensities rather than infinite number of different intensities, a phase slice of appropriate size rather than infinitely small size and the statistical fluctuations. We first show the decoy-state method with only a few different intensities and a phase slice of appropriate size. We then give a statistical fluctuation analysis for the decoy-state method. Numerical simulation shows that, the performance of our method is compar…
We report the first experimental demonstration of conditional preparation of a non classical state of light in the continuous variable regime. Starting from a non degenerate OPO which generates above threshold quantum intensity correlated signal and idler "twin beams", we keep the recorded values of the signal intensity only when the idler falls inside a band of values narrower than its standard deviation. By this very simple technique, we generate a sub-Poissonian state 4.4dB below shot noise from twin beams exhibiting 7.5dB of noise reduction in the intensity difference.
A recently introduced two-channel confocal microscope with correlated detection promises up to 50% improvement in transverse spatial resolution [Simon, Sergienko, Optics Express {\bf 18}, 9765 (2010)] via the use of photon correlations. Here we achieve similar results in a different manner, introducing a triple-confocal correlated microscope which exploits the correlations present in optical parametric amplifiers. It is based on tight focusing of pump radiation onto a thin sample positioned in front of a nonlinear crystal, followed by coincidence detection of signal and idler photons, each foc…
Nondegenerate four-wave mixing (FWM) process based on a double-$Λ$ scheme in hot alkali metal vapor is a versatile tool in quantum state engineering, quantum imaging, and quantum precision measurements. In this Letter, we investigate the generation of quantum correlated twin beams which carry nonzero orbital angular momentums (OAMs) based on the FWM process in hot cesium vapor. The amplified probe beam and the newly generated conjugate beam in the FWM process have the same and opposite topological charge as the seed beam, respectively. We also explore the FWM process operated in a nonamplifyin…
Twin-field quantum key distribution (TF-QKD) protocol and its variants, e.g. phase-matching (PM) QKD and TF-QKD based on sending or not sending, are highly attractive since they are able to overcome the well-known rate-loss limit for QKD protocols without repeater: $R=O(η)$ with $η$ standing for the channel transmittance. However, all these protocols require active phase randomization and post-selection that play an essential role together in their security proof. Counterintuitively, we find that in TF-QKD, beating the rate-loss limit is still possible even if phase randomization and post-sele…
Channel loss seems to be the most severe limitation on the practical application of long distance quantum key distribution. The idea of twin-field quantum key distribution can improve the key rate from the linear scale of channel loss in the traditional decoy-state method to the square root scale of the channel transmittance. However, the technical demanding is rather tough because it requests single photon level interference of two remote independent lasers. Here, we adopt the technology developed in the frequency and time transfer to lock two independent lasers' wavelengths and utilize addit…
By exploiting the quantised nature of light, we demonstrate a sub-shot-noise scanning optical transmittance microscope. Our microscope demonstrates, with micron scale resolution, a factor of improvement in precision of 1.76(9) in transmittance estimation gained per probe photon relative to an optimal classical version at the same optical power. This would allow us to observe photosensitive samples with nearly twice the precision,without sacrificing image resolution or increasing optical power to improve signal-to-noise ratio. Our setup uses correlated twin-beams produced by parametric down-con…
We show the equivalence between two different communication schemes that employ a couple of modes of the electromagnetic field. One scheme uses unconventional heterodyne detection, with correlated signal and image-band modes in a twin-beam state from parametric downconversion. The other scheme is realized through a complex-number coding over quadrature-squeezed states of two uncorrelated modes, each detected by ordinary homodyning. This equivalence concerns all the stages of the communication channel: the encoded state, the optimal amplifier for the channel, the master equation modeling the lo…
Quantum-intensity-correlated twin beams of light can be used to measure absorption with precision beyond the classical shot-noise limit. The degree to which this can be achieved with a given estimator is defined by the quality of the twin-beam intensity correlations, which is quantified by the noise reduction factor. We derive an analytical model of twin-beam experiments, incorporating experimental parameters such as the relative detection efficiency of the beams, uncorrelated optical noise, and uncorrelated detector noise. We show that for twin beams without excessive noise, measured correlat…
We report on the absolute calibration of a CCD camera by exploiting quantum correlation. This novel method exploits a certain number of spatial pairwise quantum correlated modes produced by spontaneous parametric-down-conversion. We develop a measurement model taking into account all the possible source of losses and noise that are not related to the quantum efficiency,accounting for all the uncertainty contributions, and we reach the relative uncertainty of 0.3% in low photon flux regime. This represents a significant step forward for the characterizaion of (scientific) CCDs used in mesoscopi…
Quantum key distribution (QKD) allows two remote parties to share information-theoretically secure keys. In recent years, a revolutionary breakthrough called twin-field (TF) QKD has been developed to overcome the linear key-rate constraint and greatly increases the achievable distance. Phase-randomization and subsequent postselection play important roles in its security proof. Later, no-phase-postselection TF-QKD was proposed and became a popular variant, since the removal of phase postselection leads to a higher key rate. However, the achievable distance is decreased compared to the original …
Twin-Field (TF) quantum key distribution (QKD) is a major candidate to be the new benchmark for far-distance QKD implementations, since its secret key rate can overcome the repeaterless bound by means of a simple interferometric measurement. Many variants of the original protocol have been recently proven to be secure. Here, we focus on the TF-QKD type protocol proposed by Curty et al [preprint arXiv:1807.07667], which can provide a high secret key rate and whose practical feasibility has been demonstrated in various recent experiments. The security of this protocol relies on the estimation of…
Side-channel-secure quantum key distribution with correlated sources
University of Science and Technology of China(中国科学技术大学);Laboratory of Quantum Information, University of Science and Technology of China(中国科学技术大学量子信息实验室);Anhui Province Key Laboratory of Quantum Network, University of Science and Technology of China(中国科学技术大学安徽省量子网络重点实验室);CAS Center for Excellence in Quantum Information and Quantum Physics, University of Science and Technology of China(中国科学技术大学中国科学院量子信息与量子物理前沿卓越中心)
We demonstrate a source for correlated pairs of atoms characterized by two opposite momenta and two spatial modes forming a Bell state only involving external degrees of freedom. We characterize the state of the emitted atom beams by observing strong number squeezing up to -10 dB in the correlated two-particle modes of emission. We furthermore demonstrate genuine two-particle interference in the normalized second-order correlation function $g^{(2)}$ relative to the emitted atoms.
Noise-limited secret key agreement with twin optical physically unclonable functions
Institute of Electronic Structure & Laser (IESL), FORTH(电子结构与激光研究所(IESL),FORTH);Center for Quantum Science & Technologies (FORTH-QuTech)(量子科学与技术中心(FORTH-QuTech))
Quantum-correlated photon sources provide a means of suppressing multiple photon emission and thus improving the security and efficiency of quasi single-photon quantum key distribution systems. We present illustrative photon-counting statistics for a Poissonian source conditioned by photon number measurements on a fully correlated twin beam with a non-ideal photon counter. We show that high photon counting efficiency is needed to obtain significant improvement in channel efficiency (bits per symbol) and/or security (in the form of reduced Shannon entropy leakage) over a single beam source.
Twin-field quantum key distribution (TF-QKD) and its variants can overcome the fundamental rate-distance limit of QKD which has been demonstrated in the laboratory and field while their physical implementations with side channels remains to be further researched. We find the external modulation of different intensity states through the test, required in those TF-QKD with post-phase compensation, shows a side channel in frequency domain. Based on this, we propose a complete and undetected eavesdropping attack, named passive frequency shift attack, on sending or not-sending (SNS) TF-QKD protocol…
Quantum key distribution endows people with information-theoretical security in communications. Twin-field quantum key distribution (TF-QKD) has attracted considerable attention because of its outstanding key rates over long distances. Recently, several demonstrations of TF-QKD have been realized. Nevertheless, those experiments are implemented in the laboratory, remaining a critical question about whether the TF-QKD is feasible in real-world circumstances. Here, by adopting the sending-or-not-sending twin-field QKD (SNS-TF-QKD) with the method of actively odd parity pairing (AOPP), we demonst…
Twin-field quantum key distribution (TFQKD), using single-photon-type interference, offers a way to exceed the rate-distance limit without quantum repeaters. However, it still suffers from the photon losses and dark counts, which impose an ultimate limit on its transmission distance. In this letter, we propose a scheme to implement TFQKD with an entangled coherent state source in the middle to increase its range, as well as comparing its performance under coherent attacks with that of TFQKD variants. Simulations show that our protocol has a theoretical distance advantage of 400 kilometers. Mor…
We prove the unconditional security of the Bennett 1992 protocol, by using a reduction to an entanglement distillation protocol initiated by a local filtering process. The bit errors and the phase errors are correlated after the filtering, and we can bound the amount of phase errors from the observed bit errors by an estimation method involving nonorthogonal measurements. The angle between the two states shows a trade-off between accuracy of the estimation and robustness to noises.