Pierpaolo Boffi

Ensuring information privacy in modern communication systems has become increasingly critical. Quantum key distribution (QKD), leveraging the principles of quantum mechanics, provides information-theoretically secure key sharing and has matured into the most advanced quantum communication application. Despite successful demonstrations and emerging commercial deployments, the widespread adoption of QKD is hindered by the high cost of building dedicated quantum networks. A promising and cost-effective alternative is the integration of QKD into classical fiber-optic infrastructure, particularly using standard single-mode fibers. However, this approach is limited by noise and nonlinear effects such as spontaneous Raman scattering. Recent advancements in space-division multiplexing (SDM) have led to the development of uncoupled-core multi-core fibers (MCFs), which offer spatial separation between quantum and classical signals, mitigating interference. While previous QKD-MCF coexistence studies have been restricted to lab environments and non-standard large-diameter fibers, we demonstrate, for the first time, the coexistence of QKD and classical communication channels, in a realistic field-deployed scenario. One of the cores was dedicated to QKD and the other cores to classical transmission. The system was tested with 110-Tb/s traffic over 25.2 km of field-deployed MCF with a 125-µm cladding. Our results mark a significant step forward in integrating QKD with classical communication based on uncoupled-core MCF technology.