Author(s)

Makhamisa Senekane^1*, Mhlambululi Mafu^1,2, Francesco Petruccione^1,3

¹Centre for Quantum Technology, School of Chemistry and Physics, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.
²Department of Physics and Astronomy, Botswana International University of Science and Technology, Palapye, Botswana.
³National Institute for Theoretical Physics (NITheP), University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.

We propose and demonstrate an optical implementation of a quantum key distribution protocol, which uses three-non-orthogonal states and six states in total. The proposed scheme improves the protocol that is proposed by Phoenix, Barnett and Chefles [J. Mod. Opt. 47, 507 (2000)]. An additional feature, which we introduce in our scheme, is that we add another detection set; where each detection set has three non-orthogonal states. The inclusion of an additional detection set leads to improved symmetry, increased eavesdropper detection and higher security margin for our protocol.

Quantum Key Distribution, QKD, Symmetric, Protocol, Six-State, Quantum, PBC00, Optical Implementation

Senekane, M. , Mafu, M. and Petruccione, F. (2015) Six-State Symmetric Quantum Key Distribution Protocol. Journal of Quantum Information Science, 5, 33-40. doi: 10.4236/jqis.2015.52005.