Co-existence of 9.6 Tb/s Classical Channels and a Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) Channel over a 7-core Multicore Optical Fibre

This paper presents a record-high co-existence DP-16QAM coherent transmission of 9.6Tb/s for classical channels with one discrete-variable quantum key distribution channel over a 7-core Multicore fibre. We demonstrate that effective secret key generation is possible even with the combined crosstalk effect of the six adjacent cores over the quantum channel. Additional measurements show the impact on the secret key rate and QBER by adding coherent optical channels in different cores.