Secret key generation via a modified quantum secret sharing protocol

Abstract

ABSTRACT We present and experimentally show a novel protocol for distributing secret information between two and onlytwo parties in a N -party single-qubit Quantum Secret Sharing (QSS) system. We demonstrate this new algorithmwith N = 3 active parties over  6km of telecom. ber. Our experimental device is based on the Clavis 2 QuantumKey Distribution (QKD) system built by ID Quantique but is generalizable to any implementation. We showthat any two out of the N parties can build secret keys based on partial information from each other and withcollaboration from the remaining N 2 parties. This algorithm allows for the creation of two-party secret keyswere standard QSS does not and signi cantly reduces the number of resources needed to implement QKD on ahighly connected network such as the electrical grid. 1. INTRODUCTION Standard QKD systems, regardless of whether they are discrete or continuous variable, usually consist of justtwo nodes: a sender Alice and a receiver Bob. 1 The point to point nature of QKD can become a problem inhighly connected environments as multiple independently operating QKD systems are needed. QKD networkgeometries such as branching, star and loop structures have been proposed in part to reduce the cost of highlyconnected networks.