Low-cost lightweight-client twin-field quantum key distribution network with wavelength division multiplexing

Abstract

In recent years, quantum communication technology has gradually entered the practical stage. Multiple quantum key distribution (QKD) networks have been built and tested all over the world. However, quantum communication networking mode always evolves from a point-to-point network to a many-to-many network. The major challenges in quantum communication are secret key rate, distance, cost, and size of QKD devices. We proposed a low-cost, lightweight-client, twin-field QKD network with wavelength division multiplexing (WDM). The proposed implementation adopts polarization multiplexing, time-division multiplexing, and WDM technology to solve all these major challenges and implement a many-to-many dynamic communications network. Furthermore, our scheme can effectively reduce the cost to less than half of that of current QKD networks and has reference significance for large-scale deployment of QKD networks.