Adaptation of Error Correction Procedures to the Time-Bin Quantum Key Distribution Protocol Implementation

IEEE Access. 2026. Vol. 14. P. 343–354.

Vladimir I. Morozov, Mikhail S. Elezov, Oleg O. Evsutin, Roman V. Ozhegov

Error correction is a crucial stage in quantum key distribution (QKD) protocols — a promising field of modern cryptography where the secrecy of the shared key information is guaranteed by the laws of quantum mechanics. Currently, there are many effective approaches to error correction in QKD. However, most of them, due to their generic nature, fail to leverage the specific features of particular protocol implementations. This work demonstrates that accounting for the hardware specifics of a QKD system implementing the time-bin protocol enables a significant increase in error correction performance. For the considered QKD system, we have experimentally obtained estimates of the Quantum Bit Error Rate (QBER) observed for each combination of bit and detector. The differences in the obtained estimates reveal that the quantum channel can be modeled as a non-uniform binary channel. Furthermore, based on computational experiments with a model of the quantum channel, it was established that adapting the error correction procedure to its properties can achieve up to a 2.7-fold reduction in the LDPC code decoding failure rate at low error levels.

 

Keywords: информационная безопасность, помехоустойчивое кодирование, квантовый канал, Quantum key distribution, Quantum Channel, Error-correcting codes, Information security, квантовое распределение ключей, Time-bin protocol, Non-uniform binary channel, Протокол с фазово-временным кодированием, неоднородный двоичный канал

Publication based on the results of: Development of Scientific and Technological Principles for Next-Generation Communication Networks Based on Quantum and Post-Quantum Cryptography Methods (2025)