Performance of the SwissQuantum network over 21 months
Damien Stucki, Matthieu Legré, Laurent Monat, Samuel Robyr, Patrick Trinkler, G. Ribordy, Rob Thew, Nino Walenta, Nicolas Gisin, François Buntschu, Didier Perroud, Gerald Litzistorf, Jose Tavares, Stefano Ventura, Pascal Junod, R Voirol, Patrick Monbaron · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 2011
In this paper, we present the architecture and results of the SwissQuantum quantum key distribution (QKD) network. This three nodes triangular quantum network was running from March 2009 to January 2011 in the Geneva metropolitan area. The three trusted nodes were located at the University of Geneva (Unige), the CERN and the University of Applied Sciences Western Switzerland in Geneva (hepia Geneva). This quantum network was deployed to prove reliability of QKD in telecommunication network over a long period. To facilitate integration of QKD in telecommunication network, this quantum network was composed of three layers: a quantum layer, a key management layer, and an application layer. The keys are distributed in the first layer; they are handled in the second layer; and they are used in the third layer.