Novel scheme for secure data transmission based on mesoscopic twin beams and photon-number-resolving detectors

Alessia Allevi; Maria Bondani

doi:10.1038/s41598-022-19503-y

Novel scheme for secure data transmission based on mesoscopic twin beams and photon-number-resolving detectors

Sci Rep. 2022 Sep 16;12(1):15621. doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-19503-y.

Authors

Alessia Allevi^#^{1

2}, Maria Bondani^#³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Science and High Technology, University of Insubria, Via Valleggio 11, 22100, Como, Italy. alessia.allevi@uninsubria.it.
² Institute for Photonics and Nanotechnologies, IFN-CNR, Via Valleggio 11, 22100, Como, Italy. alessia.allevi@uninsubria.it.
³ Institute for Photonics and Nanotechnologies, IFN-CNR, Via Valleggio 11, 22100, Como, Italy.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Quantum resources can improve the quality and security of data transmission. A novel communication protocol based on the use of mesoscopic twin-beam (TWB) states of light is proposed and discussed. The message sent by Alice to Bob is encoded in binary single-mode thermal states having two possible mean values, both smaller than the mean value of the TWB. Such thermal states are alternately superimposed to the portion of TWB sent to Bob. We demonstrate that in the presence of an eavesdropping attack that intercepts and substitutes part of the signal with a thermal noise, Bob can still successfully decrypt the message by evaluating the noise reduction factor for detected photons. The protocol opens new perspectives in the exploitation of quantum states of light for applications to Quantum Communication.