Experimental Semi-quantum Key Distribution With Classical Users

Abstract

Quantum key distribution, which allows two distant parties to share an unconditionally secure cryptographic key, promises to play an important role in the future of communication. For this reason such technique has attracted many theoretical and experimental efforts, thus becoming one of the most prominent quantum technologies of the last decades. The security of the key relies on quantum mechanics and therefore requires the users to be capable of performing quantum operations, such as state preparation or measurements in multiple bases. A natural question is whether and to what extent these requirements can be relaxed and the quantum capabilities of the users reduced. Here we demonstrate a novel quantum key distribution scheme, where users are fully classical. In our protocol, the quantum operations are performed by an untrusted third party acting as a server, which gives the users access to a superimposed single photon, and the key exchange is achieved via interaction-free measurements on the shared state. We also provide a full security proof of the protocol by computing the secret key rate in the realistic scenario of finite-resources, as well as practical experimental conditions of imperfect photon source and detectors. Our approach deepens the understanding of the fundamental principles underlying quantum key distribution and, at the same time, opens up new interesting possibilities for quantum cryptography networks

arXiv commentVersion accepted by Quantum - 9 pages, 4 figures + Appendix (16 pages, 4 figures)

References in corpus (26)

• Quantum cryptography: Public key distribution and coin tossing
• The Security of Practical Quantum Key Distribution
• Simple Proof of Security of the BB84 Quantum Key Distribution Protocol
• Measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution
• Advances in Quantum Cryptography
• Secure quantum key distribution with realistic devices
• Distillation of secret key and entanglement from quantum states
• Quantum Mechanical Interaction-Free Measurements
• An information-theoretic security proof for QKD protocols
• Quantum Key Distribution with Classical Bob
• Quantum cryptography with finite resources: unconditional security bound for discrete-variable protocols with one-way post-processing
• Semi-Quantum Key Distribution
• Counterfactual Quantum Cryptography
• High-speed measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution with integrated silicon photonics
• Proof-of-principle experimental demonstration of twin-field type quantum key distribution
• Mediated Semi-Quantum Key Distribution
• Experimental demonstration of counterfactual quantum communication
• Experimentally feasible protocol for semiquantum key distribution
• Quantum cryptography: key distribution and beyond
• Active demultiplexing of single-photons from a solid-state source
• Two-way communication with a single quantum particle
• Sine gating detector with simple filtering for low-noise infra-red single photon detection at room temperature
• Experimental two-way communication with one photon
• Optimal Coherent Filtering for Single Noisy Photons
• Quantum searching a classical database (or how we learned to stop worrying and love the bomb)
• Erasing Quantum Distinguishability via Single-Mode Filtering

Cited by in corpus (8)

• Security Proof Against Collective Attacks for an Experimentally Feasible Semiquantum Key Distribution Protocol
• Quantum coherence in networks
• Quantum and semi--quantum key distribution in networks
• Direct and Efficient Detection of Quantum Superposition
• Integrated semi-quantum layered communication
• A coherence-witnessing game and applications to semi-device-independent quantum key distribution
• Testing Single Photon Entanglement using Self-Referential Measurements
• Acquisition of delocalized information via classical and quantum carriers