Long-distance entanglement-based quantum key distribution experiment using practical detectors

We report an entanglement-based quantum key distribution experiment that we performed over 100 km of optical fiber using a practical source and detectors. We used a silicon-based photon-pair source that generated high-purity time-bin entangled photons, and high-speed single photon detectors based on InGaAs/InP avalanche photodiodes with the sinusoidal gating technique. To calculate the secure key rate, we employed a security proof that validated the use of practical detectors. As a result, we confirmed the successful generation of sifted keys over 100 km of optical fiber with a key rate of 4.8 bit/s and an error rate of 9.1%, with which we can distill secure keys with a key rate of 0.15 bit/s. (C) 2010 Optical Society of America