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In theory, quantum key distribution (QKD) allows secure communications between two parties based on physical laws. However, most of the security proofs of QKD today make unrealistic assumptions and neglect many relevant device…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2019-08-06 Margarida Pereira , Marcos Curty , Kiyoshi Tamaki

Quantum key distribution (QKD) enables information-theoretically secure communication against eavesdropping. However, phase instability remains a challenge across many QKD applications, particularly in schemes such as twin-field QKD and…

In principle, quantum key distribution (QKD) offers information-theoretic security based on the laws of physics. In practice, however, the imperfections of realistic devices might introduce deviations from the idealized models used in…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2020-06-01 Feihu Xu , Xiongfeng Ma , Qiang Zhang , Hoi-Kwong Lo , Jian-Wei Pan

Side-channel attacks currently constitute the main challenge for quantum key distribution (QKD) to bridge theory with practice. So far two main approaches have been introduced to address this problem, (full) device-independent QKD and…

Quantum key distribution (QKD) protocols with threshold detectors are driving high-performance QKD demonstrations. The corresponding security proofs usually assume that all physical detectors have the same detection efficiency. However, the…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2021-02-02 Yanbao Zhang , Patrick J. Coles , Adam Winick , Jie Lin , Norbert Lutkenhaus

Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) enables the sharing of cryptographic keys secured by quantum mechanics. The BB84 protocol assumed single-photon sources, but practical systems rely on weak coherent pulses vulnerable to photon-number-splitting…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2025-06-03 Ibrahim Almosallam

Quantum key distribution (QKD) protocols aim at allowing two parties to generate a secret shared key. While many QKD protocols have been proven unconditionally secure in theory, practical security analyses of experimental QKD…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2023-07-04 Michel Boyer , Gilles Brassard , Nicolas Godbout , Rotem Liss , Stéphane Virally

Thanks to the single-photon interference at a third untrusted party, the twin-field quantun key distribution (TF-QKD) protocol and its variants can beat the well-known rate-loss bound without quantum repeaters, and related experiments have…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2021-01-06 Chun-Mei Zhang , Yi-Wei Xu , Rong Wang , Qin Wang

Quantum key distribution (QKD) offers a way for establishing information-theoretically secure communications. An important part of QKD technology is a high-quality random number generator (RNG) for quantum states preparation and for…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2018-01-24 A. S. Trushechkin , P. A. Tregubov , E. O. Kiktenko , Y. V. Kurochkin , A. K. Fedorov

Quantum key distribution (QKD) promises information-theoretic security based on quantum mechanics and idealized device models. Practical implementations, however, deviate from these models due to unavoidable device imperfections, and…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2026-05-14 Álvaro Navarrete , Guillermo Currás-Lorenzo , Margarida Pereira , Marcos Curty

We analyse the distribution of secure keys using quantum cryptography based on the continuous variable degree of freedom of entangled photon pairs. We derive the information capacity of a scheme based on the spatial entanglement of photons…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2009-11-13 Lijian Zhang , Christine Silberhorn , Ian A. Walmsley

We investigate the use of photon number states to identify eavesdropping attacks on quantum key distribution (QKD) schemes. The technique is based on the fact that different photon numbers traverse a channel with different transmittivity.…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2009-11-13 Daryl Achilles , Ekaterina Rogacheva , Alexei Trifonov

We present a passive approach to the security analysis of quantum key distribution (QKD) with an untrusted source. A complete proof of its unconditional security is also presented. This scheme has significant advantages in real-life…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2015-05-13 Yi Zhao , Bing Qi , Hoi-Kwong Lo , Li Qian

With the emergence of an information society, the idea of protecting sensitive data is steadily gaining importance. Conventional encryption methods may not be sufficient to guarantee data protection in the future. Quantum key distribution…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2016-09-20 Nitin Jain , Birgit Stiller , Imran Khan , Dominique Elser , Christoph Marquardt , Gerd Leuchs

Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) is a promising technology for secure communication. Nevertheless, QKD is still treated with caution in certain contexts due to potential gaps between theoretical models and actual QKD implementations. A common…

In theory, quantum key distribution (QKD) offers information-theoretic security. In practice, however, it does not due to the discrepancies between the assumptions used in the security proofs and the behaviour of the real apparatuses.…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2023-03-29 Margarida Pereira , Go Kato , Akihiro Mizutani , Marcos Curty , Kiyoshi Tamaki

Over the last decades, Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) has risen as a promising solution for secure communications. However, like all cryptographic protocols, QKD implementations can open security vulnerabilities. Until now, the study of…

Quantum key distribution (QKD) promises information-theoretic security based on quantum mechanics, but practical implementations face security vulnerabilities due to device imperfections. Recent advances have separately addressed source and…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2025-07-08 Guillermo Currás-Lorenzo , Margarida Pereira , Shlok Nahar , Devashish Tupkary

Quantum key distribution (QKD) theoretically provides unconditional security between remote parties. However, guaranteeing practical security through device characterisation alone is challenging in real-world implementations due to the…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2025-04-29 Hao Dong , Cong Jiang , Di Ma , Chi Zhang , Jia Huang , Hao Li , Li-Xing You , Yang Liu , Xiang-Bin Wang , Qiang Zhang , Jian-Wei Pan

The quantum key distribution (QKD), guaranteed by the principle of quantum physics, is a promising solution for future secure information and communication technology. However, device imperfections compromise the security of real-life QKD…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2022-09-14 Ye Chen , Chunfeng Huang , Zihao Chen , Wenjie He , Chengxian Zhang , Shihai Sun , Kejin Wei