Experimental free-space quantum secure direct communication and its security analysis

We report an experimental implementation of free-space quantum secure direct communication based on single photons. The quantum communication scheme uses phase encoding, and the asymmetric Mach-Zehnder interferometer is optimized so as to automatically compensate phase drift of the photons during their transitions over the free-space medium. At a 16 MHz pulse repetition frequency, an information transmission rate of 500 bps over a 10 m free space with a mean quantum bit error rate of 0.49% +/- 0.27% is achieved. The security is analyzed under the scenario that Eve performs the collective attack for single-photon state and the photon number splitting attack for multi-photon state in the depolarizing channel. Our results show that quantum secure direct communication is feasible in free space. (C) 2020 Chinese Laser Press