Measurement-device-independent quantum conference key agreement network based on an all-photonic repeater

Quantum conference key agreement is a cryptographic task in which more than two parties aim to generate a common secret key. Leveraging properties of multipartite quantum correlations, quantum conference key agreement can be implemented more efficiently in large-scale quantum networks. Inspired by the all-photonic quantum repeater, we propose an open-destination measurement-device-independent quantum conference key agreement network based on all-photonic architectures. The scheme enables flexible generation of common secret keys among users without the need for quantum memories, and it can even work if some users do not actively send signals. As an illustration, we show in detail a four-party network, in which secure communications are established among two or three participants. We present further simulation results that incorporate detector imperfections to evaluate the performance and feasibility in real-life situations.