Single photon quantum cryptography

Alexios Beveratos (1) , Rosa Brouri (1) , Thierry Gacoin (2) , André Villing (1) , Jean-Philippe Poizat (1) , Philippe Grangier (1)

1 Laboratoire Charles Fabry de l'Institut d'Optique / Optique quantique
2 LPMC - Laboratoire de physique de la matière condensée

We report the full implementation of a quantum cryptography protocol using a stream of single photon pulses generated by a stable and efficient source operating at room temperature. The single photon pulses are emitted on demand by a single nitrogen-vacancy (NV) color center in a diamond nanocrystal. The quantum bit error rate is less that 4.6% and the secure bit rate is 9500 bits/s. The overall performances of our system reaches a domain where single photons have a measurable advantage over an equivalent system based on attenuated light pulses.

Domaines: Physique Quantique [quant-ph]

Alexios Beveratos, Rosa Brouri, Thierry Gacoin, André Villing, Jean-Philippe Poizat, et al.. Single photon quantum cryptography. Physical Review Letters, 2002, 89(18), pp.187901. ⟨10.1103/PhysRevLett.89.187901⟩. ⟨hal-00509134⟩