Quantum key distribution (QKD) can provide unconditional security based on the fundamental laws of quantum physics. Unfortunately, real-life implementations of a QKD system may contain overlooked imperfections and thus violate the practical security of QKD. It is vital to explore these imperfections. In this thesis, I study two practical imperfections in QKD: i) Discovering security loophole in a commercial QKD system: I perform a proof-of-principle experiment to demonstrate a technically feasible quantum attack on top of a commercial QKD system. The attack I utilize is called phase-remapping attack. ii) Generating high-speed truly random numbers: I propose and experimentally demonstrate an ultrafast QRNG at a rate over 6 Gb/s, which is based on the quantum phase fluctuations of a laser. Moreover, I consider a potential adversary who has partial knowledge of the raw data and discuss how one can rigorously remove such partial knowledge with post-processing.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TORONTO/oai:tspace.library.utoronto.ca:1807/32641 |
| Date | 17 August 2012 |
| Creators | Xu, Feihu |
| Contributors | Lo, Hoi-Kwong |
| Source Sets | University of Toronto |
| Language | en_ca |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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