High-capacity quantum key distribution based on hyperentangled Bell states and hyper-encoding

Abstract

According to the properties of the hyperentangled Bell state and hyper-encoding technology, this paper proposes a high-capacity quantum key distribution protocol with qudits hyper-encoded in polarization and spatial mode degrees of freedom (DOFs). In our protocol, 8 bits of information can be transmitted in one iteration. In contrast, the previous quantum key distribution protocols can only transmit up to 4 or 6 bits in one iteration. Moreover, quantum memory is unnecessary in our protocol. We analyze the relationship between the amount of eavesdropping and the success rate of eavesdropping. With the increase of eavesdropping information, the eavesdropping success probability will decrease sharply. The results show that our protocol is secure. Finally, this protocol is flexible; each qubit has two completely independent DOFs. If one DOF is destroyed, the other can still be used to transmit secure information. The protocol may be useful in the future quantum communication field.