English

Experimental quantum key distribution secure against malicious devices

Quantum Physics 2023-07-06 v1

Abstract

The fabrication of quantum key distribution (QKD) systems typically involves several parties, thus providing Eve with multiple opportunities to meddle with the devices. As a consequence, conventional hardware and/or software hacking attacks pose natural threats to the security of practical QKD. Fortunately, if the number of corrupted devices is limited, the security can be restored by using redundant apparatuses. Here, we report on the demonstration of a secure QKD setup with optical devices and classical post-processing units possibly controlled by an eavesdropper. We implement a 1.25 GHz chip-based measurement-device-independent QKD system secure against malicious devices on \emph{both} the measurement and the users' sides. The secret key rate reaches 137 bps over a 24 dB channel loss. Our setup, benefiting from high clock rate, miniaturized transmitters and a cost-effective structure, provides a promising solution for widespread applications requiring uncompromising communication security.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2006.12863,
  title  = {Experimental quantum key distribution secure against malicious devices},
  author = {Wei Li and Victor Zapatero and Hao Tan and Kejin Wei and Hao Min and Wei-Yue Liu and Xiao Jiang and Sheng-Kai Liao and Cheng-Zhi Peng and Marcos Curty and Feihu Xu and Jian-Wei Pan},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2006.12863},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

28 pages, 5 figures, 4 tables

R2 v1 2026-06-23T16:32:58.357Z