Abstract

We provide a direct comparison between the InGaAs avalanche photodiode (APD) and the NbN superconducting single photon detector (SSPD) for applications in fiber-based quantum cryptography. The quantum efficiency and dark count rate were measured for each detector, and used to calculate the quantum bit error rate (QBER) and shared key rate for a QKD link. The results indicate that, despite low quantum efficiency, the speed of the SSPD makes it a superior detector for quantum information applications. Finally, we present results of an initial integration of an SSPD into a receiver node of the DARPA quantum network to perform quantum key distribution.
Encoding quantum information on single photons has enabled the realization of a number of unique communication schemes such as the implementation of the BB84 protocol for quantum key distribution 1 and quantum dense coding. 2 Furthermore, the …

Date

October 25, 2006

Authors

Jonathan L Habif, David S Pearson, Robert H Hadfield, Robert E Schwall, Sae Woo Nam, Aaron J Miller

Journal

Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering

Pages

63720Z. 1-63720Z. 6

Publisher

Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers