Alessandro Fedrizzi

Quantum conference key agreement (CKA) is a cryptographic task for sharing a secret common key between multiple users. CKA has been established as a network protocol that can leverage multipartite entanglement (NQKD) to gain an advantage over contemporary two-party communication primitives (2QKD). Specifically, when performing QCKA in constrained quantum networks, e.g., with limited channel capacities, NQKD schemes can produce the conference key between N users with up to an N-1 rate advantage over 2QKD. QCKA has previously been implemented by direct transmission of a 4-photon GHZ state, however did not show the advantage comparison. Here we show this advantage using a universal network resource represented by a 6-qubit photonic graph state.

Paradigmatic QKD protocols establish secure keys between pairs of users, however when more than two parties want to communicate, recently introduced quantum conference quantum key agreement (CKA) protocols can outperform 2-party primitives in terms of resource cost. In this contribution we report an implementation of a four-user quantum CKA protocol using polarisation-encoded multi-partite GHZ states at telecom wavelength. We distribute these states over up to 50km of optical fibre and implement custom multiparty error correction and privacy amplification on the resulting raw keys. From a finite-key analysis, we establish an information-theoretic secure key of up to 1.15 × 10^6 bits, which is used to encrypt and securely share an image between the four users. Surpassing the previous maximum distance for GHZ state transmission by more than an order of magnitude, these results demonstrate the viability of network protocols relying on multi-partite-entanglement. Future applications beyond quantum CKA include entanglement-assisted remote clock-synchronization, quantum secret sharing, and GHZ-based repeater protocols.

We report on an experimental demonstration of a recently proposed (n, n)-QSS (quantum secret sharing) protocol, which can be shown to be secure against participant attacks, using a four-photon GHZ state. Our work leverages the generation of high-quality and high-brightness non-linear single photon sources to achieve a secure key rate of 745 bits/sec in the asymptotic regime marking an important step toward scalable quantum-secure communication in networks.

Quantum key distribution (QKD) with solid-state single-photon emitters is gaining traction due to their rapidly improving performance and compatibility with future quantum networks. We report a bright quantum dot based source of telecom photons by frequency converting a near- infrared InGaAs quantum dot to the telecom C-band (1). We implement polarisation encoded BB84 quantum key distribution (QKD), achieving a positive asymptotic key rate over 175 km of optical fibre. We also present finite key analysis optimised for typically non-ideal single- photon sources, achieving 8 orders of magnitude improvement with finite key rates of 40 kbps over 50 km in practical acquisition times of one hour (2). To extend the distances further, we take inspiration from decoy state QKD protocols – typically used to overcome photon- splitting attacks when using weak coherent states – and demonstrate a QD excitation scheme for implementing modulation of the photon number distribution. We show experimentally that the decoy state protocol enables the distribution of a secret key over more than 200 km of optical fibre.

Here we report on the experimental results implementing robust anonymous quantum conference key agreement using GHZ states. Results confirm the advantage when allowing for the use of multipartite entanglement along with bipartite entanglement.

We demonstrate fibre-based quantum key distribution over 175 km using a bright frequency converted quantum dot single-photon source. The source is capable of producing count rates approaching 2 MHz at 1550 nm with second order correlations on the order of 3%. This allows for a measured key rate of 130 bps (100 kbps) at 175 km (50 km) in the asymptotic regime using static encoding and predicted positive key rate out to 188 km. This can be extended to 240 km using ultra-low loss fibre based on the measured source parameters.

Quantum state elimination measurements tell us what states a quantum system does not have. This is different from state discrimination, where one tries to determine what the state of a quantum system is, rather than what it is not. Apart from being of fundamental interest, quantum state elimination may find uses in quantum communication and quantum cryptography. We consider unambiguous elimination of a pair of quantum states, and present a possible optical realisation of the scheme.