The SECOQC quantum key distribution network in Vienna

By Momtchil Peev, T. Länger, T. Lorünser, A. Happe, O. Maurhart, A. Poppe, Thomas Theme. European Conference on Optical Communication, 2009

985 citations recorded by the source corpus.

In this paper, we present the quantum key distribution (QKD) network designed and implemented by the European project SEcure COmmunication based on Quantum Cryptography (SECOQC) (2004–2008), unifying the efforts of 41 research and industrial organizations. The paper summarizes the SECOQC approach to QKD networks with a focus on the trusted repeater paradigm. It discusses the architecture and functionality of the SECOQC trusted repeater prototype, which has been put into operation in Vienna in 2008 and publicly demonstrated in the framework of a SECOQC QKD conference held from October 8 to 10, 2008. The demonstration involved one-time pad encrypted telephone communication, a secure (AES encryption protected) video-conference with all deployed nodes and a number of rerouting experiments, highlighting basic mechanisms of the SECOQC network functionality. The paper gives an overview of the eight point-to-point network links in the prototype and their underlying technology: three plug and play systems by id Quantique, a one way weak pulse system from Toshiba Research in the UK, a coherent one-way system by GAP Optique with the participation of id Quantique and the AIT Austrian Institute of Technology (formerly ARCAustrian Research Centers GmbH—ARC is now operating under the new name AIT Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH following a restructuring initiative.), an entangled photons system by the University of Vienna and the AIT, a continuous-variables system by Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and THALES Research and Technology with the participation of Université Libre de Bruxelles, and a free space link by the Ludwig Maximillians University in Munich connecting two nodes situated in adjacent buildings (line of sight 80 m). The average link length is between 20 and 30 km, the longest link being 83 km. The paper presents the architecture and functionality of the principal networking agent—the SECOQC node module, which enables the authentic classical communication required for key distillation, manages the generated key material, determines a communication path between any destinations in the network, and realizes end-to-end secure transport of key material between these destinations. The paper also illustrates the operation of the network in a number of typical exploitation regimes and gives an initial estimate of the network transmission capacity, defined as the maximum amount of key that can be exchanged, or alternatively the amount of information that can be transmitted with information theoretic security, between two arbitrary nodes.

Subfields: Artificial Intelligence, Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/9e016a38f60c58af9629afb76e56aba3e68a86ed

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Citations in the corpus

Quantum random number generators (2016, background): “Quantum key distribution, on the other hand, has already become an established technology and the first commercial systems have been demonstrated in practical scenarios (Peev et al., 2009; Sasaki et al., 2011).”
Secure quantum key distribution (2014, background): “Also, QKD networks have been recently deployed in USA [9], Austria [10], Switzerland [11], China [12–14] and Japan [15].”
Secure quantum key distribution with realistic devices (2020, background): “There are also on-going efforts on satellite-based quantum communications by Europe, USA, Canada, Japan, and Singapore (Joshi et al., 2018).”
Quantum eavesdropping without interception: an attack exploiting the dead time of single-photon detectors (2011, methodology): “We set up a copy of our free space QKD system [7, 25] in the laboratory.”
Quantum internet: A vision for the road ahead (2018, background): “Thefirstextendedtrustedrepeaternetworkshavealreadybeenim-plementedovermetropolitandistances( 62 – 65 ), and a long-distance implementation hasrecently been completed ( 66 ).”
Long-term performance of the SwissQuantum quantum key distribution network in a field environment (2011, background): “The SECOQC network [8] introduces the idea of layers for QKD networks.”