An efficient multiparty semi-quantum secret sharing protocol using single photons

This study proposes a multiparty single-photon semi-quantum secret sharing (SQSS) protocol to simultaneously improve quantum bit (qubit) efficiency and practical feasibility. Existing quantum secret sharing protocols typically assume that all participants possess full quantum capabilities, which limits their deployment in real-world environments. To address this issue, the proposed protocol was designed using a semi-quantum model, allowing N agents with limited quantum capabilities to participate in the secret-sharing process. In terms of efficiency, the proposed protocol employs single photons as quantum resources and is analyzed under a unified definition of qubit efficiency. The results show that the qubit efficiency of the proposed protocol reaches \(1/2N\) , which is comparable to the best recent quantum secret sharing protocols and outperforms most existing SQSS methods. Unlike certain protocols in which qubit efficiency decreases exponentially with the number of participants, the quantum resource consumption of the proposed protocol increases linearly with the number of agents. Consequently, its qubit efficiency decreases proportionally to \(1/N\) , rather than exponentially, providing better scalability as the number of agents increases. In terms of security, the protocol is analyzed against several attack models, including intercept-resend, entangle-and-measure, collective, and collusion attacks. The analysis shows that an adversary cannot obtain useful information without detection under these attacks, demonstrating the robustness of the proposed protocol.