Efficient Post-Processing for Physical-Layer Secure Key Distribution in Fiber

Abstract

Post-processing is an essential step towards the practical deployment of physical-layer secure key distribution (SKD) in classical fiber channels. However, the comparison and combination of different post-processing methods are not explored yet. Here, we fully evaluate the post-processing protocol and analyze various combinations of quantization and information reconciliation (IR), and present the efficient solutions associated with the key entropy source between the legal parties. In addition, the SHA3-256 hash function-based privacy amplification is exploited to further enhance the robust key secrecy and randomness. The results show that, the proposed protocol significantly increases the achievable key generation rate (KGR) up to 130-205% using the combination of multi-bit adaptive quantizer and IR with syndrome-decoding LDPC, compared with the previous post-processing using the same original key waveforms extracted from physical-layer SKD.