Fault-Tolerant Quantum Key Distribution: Enabling Overclocked Modulation

Abstract

Implementation security, higher generation rate, and lower cost are primary missions in the domain of quantum key distributions in recent years. However, simultaneously achieving robust security, high speed, and low cost often resembles an ``impossible triangle''. This is largely because the modulation system imposes a strict bandwidth limitation. Pushing a low-cost modulator to a high repetition frequency inevitably introduces correlations and misalignment, which can create security loopholes. Conversely, operating at a conservative rate fails to exploit the system's potential, while adopting ultra-high-bandwidth components is often expensive for practical implementation, forcing a perpetual trade-off among implementation security, key rate, and cost. In this work, we propose a comprehensive countermeasure to overcome this modulation bandwidth bottleneck. We present a protocol specifically designed to address the security loopholes arising from modulation imperfections, ensuring security even in overclocked modulation systems. Furthermore, we develop two practical techniques to characterize and mitigate the detrimental correlations. Our experimental setup demonstrates that the proposed method achieves the lowest correlated deviation reported in similar studies, while maintaining a high secret key rate using a bandwidth-limited modulation system. By simultaneously enhancing security, performance, and practicality, this work releases QKD systems from the traditional performance-cost trade-off in the near term, paving the way for widespread deployment. In the long run, this work can be readily integrated with high-bandwidth components to further push the boundaries of system performance.