Quantum cryptography without detector vulnerabilities using optically-seeded lasers
Abstract
Security in quantum cryptography is continuously challenged by inventive attacks targeting the real components of a cryptographic setup, and duly restored by new counter-measures to foil them. Due to their high sensitivity and complex design, detectors are the most frequently attacked components. Recently it was shown that two-photon interference from independent light sources can be exploited to avoid the use of detectors at the two ends of the communication channel. This new form of detection-safe quantum cryptography, called Measurement-Device-Independent Quantum Key Distribution (MDI-QKD), has been experimentally demonstrated, but with modest delivered key rates. Here we introduce a novel pulsed laser seeding technique to obtain high-visibility interference from gain-switched lasers and thereby perform quantum cryptography without detector vulnerabilities with unprecedented bit rates, in excess of 1 Mb/s. This represents a 2 to 6 orders of magnitude improvement over existing implementations and for the first time promotes the new scheme as a practical resource for quantum secure communications.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1509.08137,
title = {Quantum cryptography without detector vulnerabilities using optically-seeded lasers},
author = {L. C. Comandar and M. Lucamarini and B. Fröhlich and J. F. Dynes and A. W. Sharpe and S. Tam and Z. L. Yuan and R. V. Penty and A. J. Shields},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1509.08137},
year = {2018}
}
Comments
11 pages, 3 figures, 1 table. Supplementary information included. Citation typo in the abstract corrected