Quantum cryptography beyond key distribution: theory and experiment

TL;DR

This paper reviews the theoretical and experimental progress in quantum cryptography beyond key distribution, focusing on secure quantum computation and other primitives, highlighting their potential, limitations, and technological implementations.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive classification, security analysis, and overview of recent advances in quantum cryptography beyond QKD, including practical implementation insights.

Findings

Quantum cryptography extends beyond key distribution to secure computation.

Various quantum primitives have been developed with specific security levels.

Current photonic technology enables practical implementation of these primitives.

Abstract

Owing to its fundamental principles, quantum theory holds the promise to enhance the security of modern cryptography, from message encryption to anonymous communication, digital signatures, online banking, leader election, one-time passwords and delegated computation. While quantum key distribution (QKD) has already enabled secure key exchange over hundreds of kilometers, a myriad of other quantum-cryptographic primitives are being developed to secure future applications against quantum adversaries. This review surveys the theoretical and experimental developments in quantum cryptography beyond QKD over the decades, along with advances in secure quantum computation. It provides an intuitive classification of the main quantum primitives and their security levels, summarizes their possibilities and limits, and discusses their implementation with current photonic technology.