Zhizhong Yan

Orbiting satellites can be utilized to go beyond distance limitations of ground-based QKD. We discuss various efforts underway to develop and demonstrate the readiness of technologies that would comprise a satellite acting as a trusted-node receiver. We perform thorough link analysis to optimize the configuration of our apparatus, assess the requirements of optical polarization frame alignment protocol, and demonstrate QKD in a high-loss regime (up to 57 dB). We discuss ongoing work towards demonstrations of QKD with receiver on a moving platform, as well as potential applications of high-loss QKD for convenient short-distance QKD by transmission using polarization-preserving diffusive screens.

This submission is a joint theory and experiment contribution. The theory contribution consists of a simple circuit-based method to perform quantum gates on encrypted quantum data, together with a novel simulation-based security definition and proof. The experimental contribution is an photonic demonstration of a universal gateset for this protocol.