Experimental demonstration of kilometer-range quantum digital signatures

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a quantum digital signature protocol over kilometer-range distances, significantly surpassing previous implementations in transmission distance and bit-rate, using standard optical components suitable for existing fiber networks.

Contribution

It provides the first experimental realization of quantum digital signatures over kilometer distances with increased bit-rate using standard optical components.

Findings

Quantum digital signatures achieved over kilometer distances.

Bit-rate significantly higher than previous demonstrations.

Compatible with existing optical fiber infrastructure.

Abstract

We present an experimental realization of a quantum digital signature protocol which, together with a standard quantum key distribution link, increases transmission distance to kilometre ranges, three orders of magnitude larger than in previous realizations. The bit-rate is also significantly increased compared with previous quantum signature demonstrations. This work illustrates that quantum digital signatures can be realized with optical components similar to those used for quantum key distribution, and could be implemented in existing optical fiber networks.