Abstract

Subject of study. This study investigates a method of finding a sequence of nodes in a metropolitan optical transport network to connect a sender and receiver through a quantum channel propagating in the same optical fiber as the information channels to maximize the secret key generation rate. Aim of the work. The purpose of this work is to route the subcarrier wave quantum key distribution in a metropolitan optical transport network to maximize the secret key generation rate. Method. A metropolitan optical transport network is represented as a graph, where the vertices are the network nodes and the edges are the fiber optic lines connecting them. The weight of an edge corresponds to the secret key generation rate on the respective segment of the fiber optic line. The final key generation rate is limited by the slowest section of the path. The desired optimal route can be found by solving the graph bottleneck problem. A brute force algorithm is used. Main results. The optimal paths connecting two given nodes via a quantum channel for different network topologies are found. The results demonstrate the need for a more efficient algorithm when considering a larger number of nodes. Practical significance. The findings of this study could be used in the integration of quantum communications in existing metropolitan optical transport networks.

© 2023 Optica Publishing Group

All optical metropolitan quantum key distribution network with post-quantum cryptography authentication

Yong-Hua Yang, Pei-Yuan Li, Shi-Zhao Ma, Xiao-Cong Qian, Kai-Yi Zhang, Liu-Jun Wang, Wan-Li Zhang, Fei Zhou, Shi-Biao Tang, Jia-Yong Wang, Yu Yu, Qiang Zhang, and Jian-Wei Pan
Opt. Express 29(16) 25859-25867 (2021)

Plug-and-play continuous-variable quantum key distribution for metropolitan networks

R. Valivarthi, S. Etcheverry, J. Aldama, F. Zwiehoff, and V. Pruneri
Opt. Express 28(10) 14547-14559 (2020)

Secure Optical Networks Based on Quantum Key Distribution and Weakly Trusted Repeaters

David Elkouss, Jesus Martinez-Mateo, Alex Ciurana, and Vicente Martin
J. Opt. Commun. Netw. 5(4) 316-328 (2013)

Resource Assignment Strategy in Optical Networks Integrated With Quantum Key Distribution

Yuan Cao, Yongli Zhao, Xiaosong Yu, and Yu Wu
J. Opt. Commun. Netw. 9(11) 995-1004 (2017)

Coexistence of quantum key distribution and optical transport network based on standard single-mode fiber at high launch power

Jia-Qi Geng, Guan-Jie Fan-Yuan, Shuang Wang, Qi-Fa Zhang, Ying-Ying Hu, Wei Chen, Zhen-Qiang Yin, De-Yong He, Guang-Can Guo, and Zheng-Fu Han
Opt. Lett. 46(11) 2573-2576 (2021)