Preparing a commercial quantum key distribution system for certification against implementation loopholes
A commercial quantum key distribution (QKD) system needs to be formally certified to enable its wide deployment. The certification should include the system's robustness against known implementation loopholes and attacks that exploit them. Here we ready a fiber-optic QKD system for this procedure. The system has a prepare-and-measure scheme with decoy-state BB84 protocol, polarization encoding, a qubit source rate of 312.5 MHz, and is manufactured by QRate. We detail its hardware and postprocessing. We analyze the hardware for known implementation loopholes, search for possible new loopholes, and discuss countermeasures. We then amend the system design to address the highest-risk loopholes identified. We also work out technical requirements on the certification lab and outline its possible structure.
Authors
- Vadim Makarov (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8746-2694)
- Anastasiya Ponosova (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2727-5939)
- Evgeniy O. Kiktenko (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5760-441X)
- D. D. Ruzhitskaya (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6545-4298)
- Anqi Huang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3989-000X)
- Poompong Chaiwongkhot (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2825-8287)
- Daniil Trefilov (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3003-7221)
- Andrey Tayduganov
- Aleksey K. Fedorov (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4722-3418)
- Mikhail Petrov (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7218-7693)
- Konstantin Zaitsev (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5928-770X)
- Alexey Abrikosov
Institutions
- National Research University Higher School of Economics (RU)
- Russian Academy of Sciences (RU)
- University of Waterloo (CA)
- National University of Defense Technology (CN)
- Mahidol University (TH)
- Steklov Mathematical Institute (RU)
- National University of Science and Technology (ZW)
- Russian Quantum Center (RU)
- Universidade de Vigo (ES)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Physical Review Applied
- Published
- 2024-10-28
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevapplied.22.044076
- Citations
- 19
- Primary Topic
- Quantum Information and Cryptography
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 6.60
Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Russian Science Foundation