Meda Alice, Degiovanni Ivo Pietro, Tosi Alberto, Yuan Zhiliang, Brida Giorgio, Genovese Marco
INRIM, 10135 Torino, Italy.
Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informazione e Bioingegneria, Politecnico di Milano, 20133 Milano, Italy.
Light Sci Appl. 2017 Jun 16;6(6):e16261. doi: 10.1038/lsa.2016.261. eCollection 2017 Jun.
Single-photon avalanche diodes (SPADs) are the most widespread commercial solution for single-photon counting in quantum key distribution applications. However, the secondary photon emission that arises from the avalanche of charge carriers that occurs during the detection of a photon may be exploited by an eavesdropper to gain information without inducing errors in the transmission key. In this paper, we characterize such backflash light in gated InGaAs/InP SPADs and discuss its spectral and temporal characterization for different detector models and different operating parameters. We qualitatively bound the maximum information leakage due to backflash light and propose solutions for preventing such leakage.
单光子雪崩二极管(SPAD)是量子密钥分发应用中最广泛使用的单光子计数商业解决方案。然而,在光子检测过程中发生的载流子雪崩所产生的二次光子发射,可能会被窃听者利用来获取信息,而不会在传输密钥中引入错误。在本文中,我们对门控铟镓砷/磷化铟SPAD中的这种后向闪光进行了表征,并讨论了针对不同探测器模型和不同操作参数的光谱和时间特性。我们定性地限制了由于后向闪光导致的最大信息泄漏,并提出了防止此类泄漏的解决方案。