Coexistence of a Quantum QKD Channel and 4×100 Gbps Classical Channels in Nested Antiresonant Nodeless Hollow Core Fibre

Title 

Coexistence of a Quantum QKD Channel and 4×100 Gbps Classical Channels in Nested Antiresonant Nodeless Hollow Core Fibre

Authors

O. Alia*, R. S. Tessinari, T. D. Bradley, H. Sakr, K. Harrington, J. Hayes, Y. Chen, P. Petropoulos, D. Richardson, F. Poletti, G. T. Kanellos, R. Nejabati, D. Simeonidou

Abstract

We demonstrated for the first time a coexistence between a quantum QKD channel and 4×100 Gbps pm-qpsk carrier-grade classical optical channels in a 2 km Nested Antiresonant Nodeless Hollow Core fibre. Our results show a drop of less than 10% in the Secret Key Rate (SKR) when using a HCF compared to a significant drop of 97% in the SKR when quantum and classical signals coexist on a single core of a Multicore fibre (MCF) with equal losses, indicating that NANF type HCF significantly outperforms single-mode fibres (SMF) performance for quantum/classical coexistence. This significant difference in the SKR drop is due to the ultra-low nonlinear effects in HCF comparing to glass core fibres such as SMF and MCF.

Venue

Qcrypt 2021 (https://2021.qcrypt.net/)

Place and Date

Online, 23 – 27 August 2021