Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexed Quantum Key Distribution

Abstract

We propose orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), as a spectrally efficient multiplexing technique, for quantum key distribution (QKD) at the core of trustednode quantum networks. Two main schemes are proposed and analyzed in detail, considering system imperfections, specifically, time misalignment issues. It turns out that while multiple service providers can share the network infrastructure using the proposed multiplexing techniques, no gain in the total secret key generation rate is obtained if one uses conventional all-optical passive OFDM decoders. To achieve a linear increase in the key rate with the number of channels, an alternative active setup for OFDM decoding is proposed, which employs an optical switch in addition to conventional passive circuits. We show that by using our proposed decoder the bandwidth utilization is considerably improved as compared to conventional wavelength division multiplexing techniques.

Equation (23) is fixed

References in corpus (5)

• Long term performance of the SwissQuantum quantum key distribution network in a field environment
• Coexistence of high-bit-rate quantum key distribution and data on optical fiber
• 2-GHz clock quantum key distribution over 260 km of standard telecom fiber
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Cited by in corpus (6)

• Practical challenges in quantum key distribution
• Wireless Quantum Key Distribution in Indoor Environments
• Efficient quantum communications with multiplexed coherent state fingerprints
• Experimental implementation of the optical fractional Fourier transform in the time-frequency domain
• Wavelength Assignment in Quantum Access Networks with Hybrid Wireless-Fiber Links
• Performance analysis for OFDM-based multi-carrier continuous-variable quantum key distribution with arbitrary modulation protocol