Differential phase shift quantum key distribution experiment over 105 km fibre

Since several papers appeared in 2000, the quantum key distribution (QKD) community has been well aware that photon number splitting (PNS) attack by Eve severely limits the secure key distribution distance in BB84 QKD systems with Poissonian photon sources. In attempts to solve this problem, entanglement-based QKD, single-photon based QKD, and entanglement swapping-based QKD, have been studied in recent years. However, there are many technological difficulties that must be overcome before these schemes can become practical systems. Here we report a very simple QKD system, in which secure keys were generated over >100 km fibre for the first time. We used an alternative protocol of differential phase shift keying (DPSK) but with a Poissonian source. We analysed the security of the DPSK protocol and showed that it is robust even against hybrid attacks including collective PNS attack over consecutive pulses, intercept-and-resend (I-R) attack and beamsplitting (BS) attack, because of the non-deterministic collapse of a wavefunction in a quantum measurement. To implement this protocol, we developed a new detector for the 1.5 um band based on frequency up-conversion in a periodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN) waveguide followed by a Si avalanche photodiode (APD). The use of the new detectors increased the sifted key generation rate up to > 1 Mbit/s over 30 km fibre, which is two orders of magnitude larger than the previous record.