Light: Science & Applications (2016) 5, e16144; doi:10.1038/lsa.2016.

144
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Experimental quantum secure direct communication

with single photons
Jian-Yong Hu1,2, Bo Yu1,2, Ming-Yong Jing1,2, Lian-Tuan Xiao1,2, Suo-Tang Jia1,2, Guo-Qing Qin3,4,5 and
Gui-Lu Long3,4,5

Quantum secure direct communication is an important mode of quantum communication in which secret messages are securely
communicated directly over a quantum channel. Quantum secure direct communication is also a basic cryptographic primitive
for constructing other quantum communication tasks, such as quantum authentication and quantum dialog. Here, we report the
first experimental demonstration of quantum secure direct communication based on the DL04 protocol and equipped with
single-photon frequency coding that explicitly demonstrated block transmission. In our experiment, we provided 16 different
frequency channels, equivalent to a nibble of four-bit binary numbers for direct information transmission. The experiment firmly
demonstrated the feasibility of quantum secure direct communication in the presence of noise and loss.
Light: Science & Applications (2016) 5, e16144; doi:10.1038/lsa.2016.144; published online 9 September 2016

Keywords: block transmission; channel loss and noise; DL04 protocol; quantum secure direct communication; single-photon frequency
coding

INTRODUCTION over the past decade. The secure direct nature of QSDC also makes it
Secure communication is not only vital in military use and national an important cryptographic primitive. Protocols of quantum
security, but also important in modern everyday life. Quantum signature16, quantum dialog17,18 and quantum direct secret
communication provides a novel way of communication with sharing19,20 were all constructed on the basis of QSDC. The security
unconditional security. The fundamental difference between quantum of QSDC relies on quantum principles, such as the no-cloning
communication and classical communication is on the capability to theorem, the uncertainty principle, correlation of entangled particles
detect eavesdropping on-site. There are different modes of quantum and nonlocality. In addition, QSDC has been enhanced by a block
communication: quantum key distribution (QKD)1, quantum secret transmission technique that was proposed in the first QSDC protocol
sharing2, quantum secure direct communication (QSDC)3, quantum by Long and Liu3. For entanglement carriers, in 2003, Deng et al.21
teleportation4 and quantum dense coding5. proposed a two-step QSDC protocol where the criteria for QSDC
Since the earliest BB84 protocol was proposed1, QKD has been were explicitly stated. QSDC protocols based on high-dimensional
researched extensively, and the application over a distance of a few entanglement22–24, multipartite entanglement25–27 and hyperentangle-
hundreds of kilometers has been achieved6. QKD can be completed ment28 were developed one by one. For single photons carriers, the
non-deterministically, for instance, in the BB84 and BBM92 first QSDC protocol was proposed in Ref. 29, the so-called DL04
protocols1,7, where the key is distributed indeterminately. Alterna- protocol, wherein, the information was directly encoded in the single
tively, deterministic QKD communication8–13 is essentially a determi- photons. Here, 0 is encoded with I = |0〉〈0|+|1〉〈1| and 1 with
nistic QKD process plus a classical communication. Alice first chooses U = iσy = |0〉〈1| − |1〉〈0|. High-capacity QSDC protocols were proposed
a random key and uses it to encrypt the secret message into ciphertext, with single photons carriers30, which can carry 2 bits of information
and then transmits the ciphertext to Bob through a quantum channel. with a single photon, as the sender encodes the message in both the
If both of them are certain that no eavesdroppers exist, Alice sends the polarization state and the spatial-mode state, independently.
key to Bob through a classical channel. However, the channel loss of the photons would lead to the loss of
In contrast to QKD communication, QSDC sends secret informa- the secret information when it is encoded in the individual photons.
tion securely through a quantum channel directly without setting up a When there is noise in the quantum channel, an adversary Eve can
prior key3,14,15. Since the first QSDC protocol was proposed3, it has gain a certain amount of information by hiding her presence in the
become one of the hot research topics in quantum communication channel noise. In this case, the information leakage may be eliminated

1
State Key Laboratory of Quantum Optics and Quantum Optics Devices, Institute of Laser Spectroscopy, Shanxi University, Taiyuan, Shanxi 030006, China; 2Collaborative
Innovation Center of Extreme Optics, Shanxi University, Taiyuan 030006, China; 3State Key Laboratory of Low-Dimensional Quantum Physics and Department of Physics,
Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China; 4Collaborative Innovation Center of Quantum Matter, Beijing 100084, China and 5Tsinghua National Laboratory for Information
Science and Technology, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
Correspondence: LT Xiao, Email: xlt@[Link]; GL Long, Email: gllong@[Link]
Received 6 September 2015; revised 31 March 2016; accepted 1 April 2016; accepted article preview online 7 April 2016
 Experimental QSDC with single photons
JY Hu et al
2

by using either quantum error correction31 or quantum privacy basis, namely

amplification32. Unfortunately, quantum privacy amplification ruins
U j0i ¼ j1i; U j1i ¼ j0i
the direct communication picture because it involves merger and ð1Þ
U jþi ¼ ji; U ji ¼ jþi
order reshuffling of single photons. An efficient way to implement
QSDC in a noisy channel is to use quantum error correction31,33. Instead of using an individual operation to encode a bit value, single-
Post-processing can be performed using quantum error correction photon frequency coding applies a series of operations periodically on
without using privacy amplification and reconciliation34. In this work, a single-photon block to encode information. Bob applies the
instead of using the complicated quantum error correction, we present operations U and I on single photons in the block according to a
a new QSDC protocol on the basis of a single-photon frequency periodic function with period T = 1/f, where f is the modulation
frequency that encodes the information. Typically, different modula-
coding scheme, called the FRECO-DL04 protocol. The information is
tion frequencies correspond to the different binary bit sequences.
encoded in the frequency spectrum of a block of single photons rather
Once Alice obtains the modulation frequencies spectrum after she
than on the individual photons. It is experimentally shown that
measures a block of single photons, she gets Bob's information fully.
FRECO-DL04 can work efficiently in the presence of channel loss
The encoding operation Bob applies to the single-photon block, after
and noise.
excluding the checking bits, is


MATERIALS AND METHODS U Sin ð2pf ti þ dÞ40; flip
Operation ¼ ð2Þ
FRECO-DL04 protocol I Sin ð2pf ti þ dÞo0; no flip
Suppose that Bob wants to send secret information to Alice. The
where δ is the initial phase of each modulation signal, which could be
protocol contains the following four steps:
an arbitrary value between 0 and 2π, and f is the modulation
frequency. An example is given in Table 1, where the initial states,
(1) Alice prepares a block of N2 single photons. Each photon in the block
the final states, the measured operations x(i) and arrival times τi are
is randomly in one of four states: |0〉, |1〉, |+〉 and |− 〉, where |0〉 and |1〉 shown. The measured values x(i) that Alice obtained denote Bob’s flip
are the eigenstates of the Pauli Z operator, and | ± 〉 = (|0〉 ± |1〉)/√2 U (denoted as 1) or no flip I (denoted as 0) operations. Alice records
are the eigenstates of the Pauli X operator. Then, Alice sends the arrival time τi, for i = 1, 2, 3,…, N, where N is the number of single
the single-photon block to Bob, and Bob acknowledges this fact. photons that she has measured in each block after subtracting the
(2) Because of channel noise and loss, Bob receives only N1 single check photons.
photons (N1oN2). He selects CN1 number (C is a positive number Not all the photons can arrive at Alice’s side because of the loss of
less than or equal to 1/2) of photons randomly from the N1 received optical fiber and imperfect detection efficiency of the single-photon
photons for eavesdropping check by measuring them randomly in the detector. However, this single-photon frequency coding scheme is
X-basis or the Z-basis (control mode29). Then, Bob tells Alice the robust against loss and error. The information is encoded in the
positions, the measuring-basis and the measuring results of these frequency spectrum of the single-photon block, instead of individual
measured photons. Alice compares her results with those of Bob and photons, where the loss and error of some photons would change only
obtains an error rate. If the error rate is higher than the threshold, they the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the frequency spectrum. The
abort the communication. If the error rate is less than the threshold, modulation frequency can be accurately determined from the block
the Alice-to-Bob communication is considered safe and continues (x(i), τi) using the discrete time Fourier transform,
to step 3.
(3) The remaining (1 − C)N1 received photons are used for encoding X
N
X ðf Þ ¼ xðiÞ ej?2pf ti ð3Þ
the secret information (Encode mode). Bob also selects C(1 − C)N1 i¼1
single photons from the remaining photons randomly as check bits for
From the frequency spectrum line at the modulation frequency, Alice
the Bob-to-Alice transmission and randomly applies one of the two can determine the encoded frequency and reads out the secret
operations, U = iσy = |0〉〈1| − |1〉〈0| and I = |0〉〈0|+|1〉〈1|, which flips or information.
does not flip the state of the photon. The rest of the single photons are For a given quantum communication system, there exists a finite
processed by the single-photon frequency coding scheme, which are maximum number Nc of frequency channels,
described below.
(4) Bob sends the encoded photon block back to Alice who can f max  f min
Nc ¼ þ1 ð4Þ
deterministically decode Bob’s operations by measuring the photons in fb
the same basis as she prepared them. Alice obtains the operation of where fmax and fmin are the maximum and minimum modulation
each single photon in the block and their arrival time. Because of frequencies, respectively, and fb is the channel spacing. The informa-
channel loss, Bob receives only N (here N ≤ (1 − C)2N1) photons in tion transmission capacity relies on the number of frequency
each block after subtracting the check photons. Alice and Bob also components. Assuming Bob loads r frequency components on one
publicly compare the results of the checking bits to check for single-photon block, the effective degrees of freedom are the total
eavesdropping in the Bob-to-Alice transmission. Next, Alice analyzes number of different combinations of r frequencies over the Nc
the frequency spectrum and determines Bob’s encoded bits and
retrieves the secret information.
Table 1 Operations of single photons for block transmission
Initial state ↕ ⤢ ↕ ⤡ ↔ … ↔
Single-photon frequency coding Final state ↕ ⤡ ↔ ⤡ ↕ … ↔
In the DL04 protocol, the information is directly encoded in the x(i ) 0 1 1 0 1 … 0
individual photons, where 0 is encoded with operation I and 1 with U. Time τi τ1 τ2 τ3 τ4 τ5 … τN
The operation U flips the state without changing the measurement

Light: Science & Applications doi:10.1038/lsa.2016.144

 Experimental QSDC with single photons
JY Hu et al
3

frequency channels, RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The results of the spectral analysis of the block (x(i), τi) using Equation
N C! (3) are shown in Figure 2. There is a white noise background in the
N max ¼ ð5Þ frequency spectrum because the photon number of coherent light
r!ðN C  rÞ!
pulses obeys a Poisson distribution. There is a characteristic spectrum
which means one single-photon block can carry b = log2Nmax bits of at the modulation frequency above the white noise background, which
information. The transmission rate can be expressed as enables Alice to retrieve the information encoded by Bob. The noise
and loss of the quantum channel decrease the SNR of the character-
b 1 istic spectrum. Figure 3 shows the relationship between the signal and
I¼ ¼ log N max ð6Þ background noise with different mean photon numbers. With a
T span T span 2
relative larger photon number per pulse, the amplitude of the
where Tspan is the time span, that is, the time length of a single-photon characteristic spectrum is higher than the background noise. Further-
block. The principle of the coding scheme is similar to the ultra-wide- more, our previous work37 showed that the SNR does not change with
band communication in the field of wireless communication35.

Experimental setup 25 kHz

60
The experimental setup is shown in Figure 1. A strong attenuated laser 50 kHz
(1550 nm, NP Photonics RELS) was used as a single-photon source 75 kHz
50 100 kHz
with systematic pulse repetition frequency of 10 MHz. Alice sends the 125 kHz
single-photon block to Bob. The QSDC operation system is controlled 40 150 kHz
175 kHz
by a field programmable gate array (FPGA) device. The control mode, |X(Ω)| 200 kHz
as shown in Figure 1, is used to check for eavesdropping. Bob 30 225 kHz
250 kHz
randomly selects a subset of the received photons after the beam 275 kHz
20
splitter. For those photons that Bob measured, he records the photons’ 300 kHz
325 kHz
arrival times. Therefore, both Alice and Bob knew the arrival time of
10 350 kHz
the pulses. They compare the measured results and calculate the error 375 kHz
rate to check with the threshold. The encoding operation, that is, the 0
400 kHz

polarization flip operation of the four states of single photons is 0 100 200 300 400 500
realized using the two serially aligned electro-optical modulators (EO- Frequency (kHz)
AM-NR-C3)36. The optical axis of the two modulators is adjusted to a Figure 2 The experimental results of the modulation frequency spectrum.
45° angle. The single photons are detected using a single-photon The y-axis is the Fourier-transformed amplitude in Equation (3). The
detector (QCD300). During the eavesdropping detection procedure of different color lines represent different modulation frequencies. These 16
the block, an optical fiber (with length L2) is used as a delay line to modulation frequency spectrum lines correspond to binary numbers from
synchronize the encoded photons. 0000 to 1111. The systematic pulse repetition frequency is 10 MHz.
In our experiment, the highest modulation frequency f is limited by
the time jitter of the single-photon detector, the computing rate of
the microprocessor and the frequency response of the modulator. 0.00
60 Modulation signal
The channel spacing is determined by the full width at half maximum 0.03
of the characteristic spectrum, which depends on the length of the 0.10
50 0.19
photon block and the mean photon count per pulse. Here, the channel
spacing is 25 kHz, which is determined by the 80 end-detected photon 0.28

counts and 1 ms block time, and could be smaller under the increscent 40 0.38
photon counts and block time. 0.43
|X(Ω)|

0.50
30 0.60
Laser1 PC1 0.73
Att Forward BS Delay line 1.00
PBS1 20
Laser2 CM
f1
Classical f2 10
FPGA FPGA PC3
SPD2 channel fr
Frequency coding
SPD1 PBS2 0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
PC2
Backward Mean photon number/pulse (×10–3)
Alice Bob
Figure 3 The characteristic spectrum and background noise distribution of
Figure 1 Schematic diagram of the experimental setup of the FRECO-DL04 the modulation frequency spectrum. The x-axis is the mean photon count
protocol. PBS, Polarization beam splitter; Att, Variable attenuator; per pulse that Alice detects. The green colored areas are the background
PC, Polarization controller; BS, Beam splitter; CM, Control mode; FPGA, white noise in the experiment, where the color depth represents the relative
Field programmable gate array; SPD, Single-photon detector. The distance probability distribution of the noise. The red line represents the amplitude of
between Alice and Bob is L1, and the delay line length is L2. the characteristic spectrum. The modulation frequency is 200 kHz.

doi:10.1038/lsa.2016.144 Light: Science & Applications

 Experimental QSDC with single photons
JY Hu et al
4

the modulation frequency. In our frequency-coding experiment, we

take Nc = 16 frequency channels from 25 to 400 kHz with channel 1.5 Secure area Unsecure area
spacing 25 kHz. Using a onefold frequency component r = 1, which

Information bits/pulse (×10–3)

means only one of the 16 frequency channels will be used for
information transmission in one time span, Alice can get log216 = 4
bits of information by processing one block of data in one time span. 1.0
When the length of the block is 1 ms, the transmission rate reaches
4 kbps. A detailed example of the nibble of four-bit binary numbers is
given in the Supplementary Information.

The security analysis of the FRECO-DL04 protocol 0.5

Here, we consider two common eavesdropping strategies: intercept-
resend attack and photon-number-splitting attack. When the single-
photon source is an attenuated laser with mean photon number μ per
pulse, the probability pn to have n photons in a single pulse follows a 0.0
Poisson distribution. The probability that an optical pulse could be 0.0 0.1 0.2 0.5 1 2 4 8 16 32
detected at the receiving end is38 Communication distance L1 (km)
X Figure 4 The calculated transmitted information bit per pulse versus the
P¼ pn ½1  ð1  Zdet Zð1  CÞÞn EZdet Zð1  CÞm ð7Þ communication distance. The dotted line is the cut-off line of the secure
nZ1
communication area. The solid lines with different colors represent different
where η = 10 − α(2L1+L2)/10is the optical attenuation due to the loss of mean photon numbers per pulse (μ = 0.19, 0.17, 0.15, 0.13, 0.11, 0.09,
the fiber (the total fiber length is 2L1+L2); L1 and L2 are the 0.07, 0.05, 0.03, 0.01, from top to bottom). Here, ηdet = 0.32, e = 5‰,
α = 0.2 dB km 1, L2 = L1, and C = 1/2.
communication distance and the fiber length of the optical delay line
at Bob’s side, respectively. α is the optical fiber loss coefficient (typical
value is 0.2 dB km − 1), and ηdet is the quantum efficiency of the single-
photon detector39,40. Equation (7) is valid if ηdetηpnn«1 for all n. get is
With multi-photon pulses, Eve performs a photon-number-splitting h i
attack. First, she performs a quantum non-demolition measurement Rn¼1
Eve ¼ 4 10
aðL1 þL2 Þ=10
p1 eð1  CÞ ð9Þ
on the pulses as soon as they exit Alice's station. When n = 2, Eve Considering all the strategies, the mean amount of effective qubits per
stores one photon P1 and sends the other one P2 to Bob using a pulse that Eve eventually gets is
lossless channel. After Bob's encoding operation, Eve captures the
photon again. To gain Bob’s secret information, Eve must judge REve ¼ Rn¼1 n¼2 nZ3
Eve þ REve þ REve ð10Þ
whether the polarizations of the two photons is parallel or
The number of qubits that Alice gets and the transmission rate of
antiparallel41. However, there is no measurement strategy for Eve to
Alice, respectively, can be derived from Equation (7)
determine whether the photon P2 is flipped by Bob. Therefore, no
information can be obtained by Eve from the two-photon pulses. RAlice ¼ 10að2L1 þL2 Þ=10 Zdet mð1  CÞ ð11Þ
When n = 3, there is a measurement M that provides a conclusive
result about whether the polarization is flipped with a probability 1/2 bRAlice
(Ref. 42). When n43, we assume that Bob can always judge whether I Alice ¼ ð12Þ
NT span
the polarization is flipped conclusively. For pulses with three or more
photons, she executes M; if the outcome is not conclusive, she blocks where b is the bit-string length of the secret information encoded in a
these pulses, but if the outcome is conclusive, she prepares a new single-photon block, and N is the number of single photons that Alice
photon in the same state and forwards it to Bob. After Bob's encoding detects within the time span Tspan. The SNR of the characteristic
operation, Eve measures the photon again on the backward trip to see spectrum is determined by the number of correct detections of the
whether the polarization state has been flipped. From these operations, encoded single photons. Although Eve may acquire some photons of
the mean amount of effective qubits per pulse that Eve can get is the encoded single-photon block conclusively, it is impossible for her
to get all secret information bits when the SNR is o1. The secure
1 XN information bits per pulse and secure communication distance are
RnZ3
Eve ¼ ½10
aL2 =10
ð1  CÞð p3 þ pn Þ ð8Þ shown in Figure 4. Here, we set ηdet = 0.32, e = 5‰, α = 0.2 dB km − 1,
2 n¼4
L2 = L1 and C = 1/2. The secure communication distance relies on the
Both eavesdropping strategies do not cause any bit error, which means mean photon number per pulses. Typically, for weak laser pulses with
that Eve cannot be detected during such an eavesdropping process. mean photon number 0.1 per pulse, the secure distance is ~ 10 km.
In a noisy channel, when n = 1, Eve performs the intercept-resend
attack. She may gain a certain amount of data without being detected CONCLUSIONS
by hiding her presence in the noise if she replaces the noisy channel by In summary, we presented a new practical QSDC protocol, the
an ideal one and sends another photon prepared by herself to Alice. FRECO-DL04 protocol, on the basis of the DL04 protocol equipped
She could acquire a fraction 4e of the qubits on the forward Alice–Bob with single-photon frequency coding. Instead of quantum error
channel, where e is the bit error rate caused by channel noise. Factor 4 correction procedure, in our protocol, the information is encoded in
arises because there is a 50% chance for Eve to pick the correct basis, the modulation frequency spectrum of the single-photon block. We
but when she picks the wrong basis, there is a 50% chance of not demonstrated the FRECO-DL04 protocol experimentally, which is the
causing a bit error. The mean effective qubits per pulse that Eve can first time the block transmission has been demonstrated. With a

Light: Science & Applications doi:10.1038/lsa.2016.144

 Experimental QSDC with single photons
JY Hu et al
5

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