No Arabic abstract
Long-distance quantum communication requires quantum repeaters to overcome photon loss in optical fibers. Here we demonstrate a repeater node with two memory atoms in an optical cavity. Both atoms are individually and repeatedly entangled with photons that are distributed until each communication partner has independently received one of them. An atomic Bell-state measurement followed by classical communication serves to establish a key. We demonstrate scaling advantage of the key rate, increase the effective attenuation length by a factor of two, and beat the error-rate threshold of 11% for unconditionally secure communication, the corner stones for repeater-based quantum networks.
In search of a quantum key distribution scheme that could stand up for more drastic eavesdropping attack, I discover a prepare-and-measure scheme using $N$-dimensional quantum particles as information carriers where $N$ is a prime power. Using the Shor-Preskill-type argument, I prove that this scheme is unconditional secure against all attacks allowed by the laws of quantum physics. Incidentally, for $N = 2^n > 2$, each information carrier can be replaced by $n$ entangled qubits. And in this case, I discover an eavesdropping attack on which no unentangled-qubit-based prepare-and-measure quantum key distribution scheme known to date can generate a provably secure key. In contrast, this entangled-qubit-based scheme produces a provably secure key under the same eavesdropping attack whenever $N geq 16$. This demonstrates the advantage of using entangled particles as information carriers to combat certain eavesdropping strategies.
A Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) network is an infrastructure capable of performing long-distance and high-rate secret key agreement with information-theoretic security. In this paper we study security properties of QKD networks based on trusted repeater nodes. Such networks can already be deployed, based on current technology. We present an example of a trusted repeater QKD network, developed within the SECOQC project. The main focus is put on the study of secure key agreement over a trusted repeater QKD network, when some nodes are corrupted. We propose an original method, able to ensure the authenticity and privacy of the generated secret keys.
Quantum communication is a method that offers efficient and secure ways for the exchange of information in a network. Large-scale quantum communication (of the order of 100 km) has been achieved; however, serious problems occur beyond this distance scale, mainly due to inevitable photon loss in the transmission channel. Quantum communication eventually fails when the probability of a dark count in the photon detectors becomes comparable to the probability that a photon is correctly detected. To overcome this problem, Briegel, D{u}r, Cirac and Zoller (BDCZ) introduced the concept of quantum repeaters, combining entanglement swapping and quantum memory to efficiently extend the achievable distances. Although entanglement swapping has been experimentally demonstrated, the implementation of BDCZ quantum repeaters has proved challenging owing to the difficulty of integrating a quantum memory. Here we realize entanglement swapping with storage and retrieval of light, a building block of the BDCZ quantum repeater. We follow a scheme that incorporates the strategy of BDCZ with atomic quantum memories. Two atomic ensembles, each originally entangled with a single emitted photon, are projected into an entangled state by performing a joint Bell state measurement on the two single photons after they have passed through a 300-m fibre-based communication channel. The entanglement is stored in the atomic ensembles and later verified by converting the atomic excitations into photons. Our method is intrinsically phase insensitive and establishes the essential element needed to realize quantum repeaters with stationary atomic qubits as quantum memories and flying photonic qubits as quantum messengers.
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.
Device-independent quantum key distribution (DIQKD) provides the strongest form of secure key exchange, using only the input-output statistics of the devices to achieve information-theoretic security. Although the basic security principles of DIQKD are now well-understood, it remains a technical challenge to derive reliable and robust security bounds for advanced DIQKD protocols that go beyond the existing results based on violations of the CHSH inequality. In this Letter, we present a framework based on semi-definite programming that gives reliable lower bounds on the asymptotic secret key rate of any QKD protocol using untrusted devices. In particular, our method can in principle be utilized to find achievable secret key rates for any DIQKD protocol, based on the full input-output probability distribution or any choice of Bell inequality. Our method also extends to other DI cryptographic tasks.