Device-independent quantum key distribution with single-photon sources

Apr 30, 2020
20 pages
Published in:
  • Quantum 4 (2020) 260
  • Published: Apr 30, 2020
e-Print:

Citations per year

2019202120232025202502468101214
Abstract: (Verein zur Foerderung des Open Access Publizierens in den Quantenwissenschaften)
Device-independent quantum key distribution\textit{Device-independent quantum key distribution} protocols allow two honest users to establish a secret key with minimal levels of trust on the provider, as security is proven without any assumption on the inner working of the devices used for the distribution. Unfortunately, the implementation of these protocols is challenging, as it requires the observation of a large Bell-inequality violation between the two distant users. Here, we introduce novel photonic protocols for device-independent quantum key distribution exploiting single-photon sources\textit{single-photon sources} and heralding-type architectures\textit{heralding-type architectures}. The heralding process is designed so that transmission losses become irrelevant for security. We then show how the use of single-photon sources for entanglement distribution in these architectures, instead of standard entangled-pair generation schemes, provides significant improvements on the attainable key rates and distances over previous proposals. Given the current progress in single-photon sources, our work opens up a promising avenue for device-independent quantum key distribution implementations.