Round-robin differential-phase-shift quantum key distribution with twisted photons

Quantum key distribution (QKD) offers the possibility for two individuals to communicate a securely encrypted message. A common technical requirement is the monitoring of signal disturbance in a QKD system to bound the information leakage toward an unwanted eavesdropper. Recently, the round-robin differential-phase-shift (RRDPS) protocol, which encodes bits of information in a high-dimensional state space, was proposed to introduce an upper bound on the amount of Eve's information based on dimensionality of prepared quantum states and randomized measurement settings. Since its introduction, many realizations of the RRDPS protocol were demonstrated using trains of coherent pulses (time bin encoding). Given that this realization of the protocol requires active and random choice of many delays in a delayed Mach-Zehnder interferometer, its implementation can be technically demanding. Here, we propose and experimentally demonstrate an implementation of the RRDPS protocol using the photonic orbital angular momentum degree of freedom in dimensions $L=3$--8, 16, 32, and 64. In particular, we show that Alice's generation stage and Bob's detection stage can each be reduced to a single phase element, greatly simplifying the implementation. Our scheme offers a practical path to using RRDPS protocol in free-space quantum channels.

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