Experimental Demonstration of an Efficient Mach&ndash;Zehnder Modulator Bias Control for Quantum Key Distribution Systems

Park, Chang-Hoon; Woo, Min-Ki; Park, Byung-Kwon; Jeon, Seung-Woo; Jung, Hojoong; Kim, Sangin; Han, Sang-Wook

doi:10.3390/electronics11142207

Submit to this Journal Review for this Journal Edit a Special Issue

Article Menu

...

Open AccessArticle

Experimental Demonstration of an Efficient Mach–Zehnder Modulator Bias Control for Quantum Key Distribution Systems

^1,2

²,

¹,

¹,

and

^1,3,*

Center for Quantum Information, Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), Seoul 02792, Korea

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Ajou University, Suwon 16499, Korea

Division of Nano and Information Technology, KIST School, Korea University of Science and Technology, Seoul 02792, Korea

Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Academic Editors: Durdu Guney and Lucas Lamata

Electronics 2022, 11(14), 2207; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics11142207

Received: 31 May 2022 / Revised: 6 July 2022 / Accepted: 13 July 2022 / Published: 14 July 2022

(This article belongs to the Topic Quantum Information and Quantum Computing)

View Full-Text Download PDF

Browse Figures

Review Reports Citation Export

Abstract

A Mach–Zehnder modulator (MZM) is necessary for implementing a decoy-state protocol in a practical quantum key distribution (QKD) system. However, an MZM bias control method optimized for QKD systems has been missing to date. In this study, we propose an MZM bias control method using N (≥2) diagnostic pulses. The proposed method can be efficiently applied to a QKD system without any additional hardware such as light sources or detectors. Furthermore, it does not reduce the key rate significantly because it uses time slots allocated to existing decoy pulses. We conducted an experimental demonstration of the proposed method in a field-deployed 1 × 3 QKD network and a laboratory test. It is shown that our method can maintain the MZM extinction ratio stably over 20 dB (bit error rate ≤1%), even in an actual network environment for a significant period. Consequently, we achieved successful QKD performances. View Full-Text

Keywords: quantum key distribution; Mach–Zehnder modulator; bias control; decoy-state protocol

▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Share and Cite

MDPI and ACS Style

Park, C.-H.; Woo, M.-K.; Park, B.-K.; Jeon, S.-W.; Jung, H.; Kim, S.; Han, S.-W. Experimental Demonstration of an Efficient Mach–Zehnder Modulator Bias Control for Quantum Key Distribution Systems. Electronics 2022, 11, 2207. https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics11142207

AMA Style

Park C-H, Woo M-K, Park B-K, Jeon S-W, Jung H, Kim S, Han S-W. Experimental Demonstration of an Efficient Mach–Zehnder Modulator Bias Control for Quantum Key Distribution Systems. Electronics. 2022; 11(14):2207. https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics11142207

Chicago/Turabian Style

Park, Chang-Hoon, Min-Ki Woo, Byung-Kwon Park, Seung-Woo Jeon, Hojoong Jung, Sangin Kim, and Sang-Wook Han. 2022. "Experimental Demonstration of an Efficient Mach–Zehnder Modulator Bias Control for Quantum Key Distribution Systems" Electronics 11, no. 14: 2207. https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics11142207

Find Other Styles

Note that from the first issue of 2016, MDPI journals use article numbers instead of page numbers. See further details here.

Article Metrics

Abstract views Pdf views Html views

Article Menu

Experimental Demonstration of an Efficient Mach–Zehnder Modulator Bias Control for Quantum Key Distribution Systems

Abstract

Share and Cite

Article Metrics

Article Access Statistics

Article Access Map by Country/Region

Further Information

Guidelines

MDPI Initiatives

Follow MDPI