Experimental Measurement-Device-Independent Quantum Key distribution with Flawed State-Preparation over 300 km
Abstract
Quantum key distribution (QKD) promises theoretically secure communication. However, it encounters challenges in implementation security and performance due to inevitable device imperfections. Since the proposal of measurement-device-independent (MDI) QKD, the critical step toward practical security is to secure QKD with imperfect sources. The source imperfections manifest as state-preparation uncertainty (SPU) in various aspects, e.g., encoding uncertainty, intensity fluctuation, and imperfect vacuum states. Here, we perform an MDI-QKD experiment and achieve both high practical security and superior performance. We address the general form of SPU and guarantee a tight estimation of the secret key rate based on the operator dominance method. We achieve secure key distribution over 303.37 km, which not only represents the farthest distance in experiments involving SPU but also considers the most SPU scenarios. Our experimental results represent a significant step toward promoting practical and secure quantum communication.
Versions
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BibTeX
@misc{lu2026experimental,
title = {{Experimental Measurement-Device-Independent Quantum Key distribution with Flawed State-Preparation over 300 km}},
author = {Yi-Fei Lu and Yan-Yang Zhou and Yang Wang and Yu Zhou and Xiao-Lei Jiang and Xin-Hang Li and Hai-Tao Wang and Yan-Mei Zhao and Jia-Ji Li and Chun Zhou and Hong-Wei Li and Lin-Jie Zhou and Wan-Su Bao},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.11428},
eprint = {2610.11428},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.11428},
note = {CC BY-SA 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Experimental Measurement-Device-Independent Quantum Key distribution with Flawed State-Preparation over 300 km
AU - Yi-Fei Lu
AU - Yan-Yang Zhou
AU - Yang Wang
AU - Yu Zhou
AU - Xiao-Lei Jiang
AU - Xin-Hang Li
AU - Hai-Tao Wang
AU - Yan-Mei Zhao
AU - Jia-Ji Li
AU - Chun Zhou
AU - Hong-Wei Li
AU - Lin-Jie Zhou
AU - Wan-Su Bao
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/08
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.11428
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.11428
AB - Quantum key distribution (QKD) promises theoretically secure communication. However, it encounters challenges in implementation security and performance due to inevitable device imperfections. Since the proposal of measurement-device-independent (MDI) QKD, the critical step toward practical security is to secure QKD with imperfect sources. The source imperfections manifest as state-preparation uncertainty (SPU) in various aspects, e.g., encoding uncertainty, intensity fluctuation, and imperfect vacuum states. Here, we perform an MDI-QKD experiment and achieve both high practical security and superior performance. We address the general form of SPU and guarantee a tight estimation of the secret key rate based on the operator dominance method. We achieve secure key distribution over 303.37 km, which not only represents the farthest distance in experiments involving SPU but also considers the most SPU scenarios. Our experimental results represent a significant step toward promoting practical and secure quantum communication.
ER -