Security of biased BB84 quantum key distribution with finite resource

In the original BB84 quantum key distribution protocol, the states are prepared and measured randomly, which lose the unmatched detection results. To improve the sifting efficiency, biased bases selection BB84 protocol is proposed. Meanwhile, a practical quantum key distribution protocol can only transmit a finite number of signals, resulting in keys of finite length. The previous techniques for finite-key analysis focus mainly on the statistical fluctuations of the error rates and yields of the qubits. However, the prior choice probabilities of the two bases also have fluctuations by taking into account the finite-size effect. In this paper, we discuss the security of biased decoy state BB84 protocol with finite resources by considering all of the statistical fluctuations. The results can be directly used in the experimental realizations.     

Simple and practical method of characterizing the parametric down-conversion source

Parametric down-conversion(PDC) sources play an important role in quantum information processing, therefore characterizing their properties is necessary. Here we present a statistical model to assess the properties of the PDC source with certain distribution, such as the brightness and photon channel transmissions, we only need to measure the singles and coincidences counts in a few seconds. Furthermore, we validate the model by applying it to a PDC source generating highly non-degenerate photon pairs. The results of the experiment indicate that our method is more simple, efficient, and less time consuming.