Large-Alphabet Quantum Key Distribution Using Spatially Encoded Light

Description

Secure communication between a sender (Alice) and a receiver (Bob) is a challenging task in today's society. In order to be able to exchange information in a secure way, Alice and Bob have to share a key to encrypt/decode the information. One method to do that is Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) using the BB84 protocol with single photons. Usually, the two-dimensional polarization basis is used to transmit information, but going to a higher dimensional basis (larger alphabet) increases security and amount of information carried by a single photon. We present our experimental results with an encoding scheme using a spatial light modulator (SLM) allowing in principle an alphabet of the order of 10^4 characters (>13 bit per photon).

Period	27 Mar 2015
Event title	DPG Frühjahrstagung 2015 Heidelberg: (DPG Spring Meeting)
Event type	Conference
Location	Heidelberg, GermanyShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International