Reduction of FWM noise in WDM-based QKD systems using interleaved and unequally spaced channels
Yongmei Sun, Yishan Lu, Jianing Niu, and Yuefeng Ji and Yuefeng Ji · Chinese Optics Letters · 2016
To extensively deploy quantum key distribution (QKD) systems, copropagating with classical channels on the same fiber using wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) technology becomes a critical issue. We propose a user-based channel-interleaving WDM scheme with unequal frequency spacing (UFS-iWDM) to reduce the impairment on the quantum channels induced by four-wave mixing (FWM), and theoretically analyze its impact on quantum bit error rate (QBER). Numerical simulation results show that a UFS-iWDM can significantly reduce the FWM noise and improve QBER compared with the corresponding WDM scheme with equal frequency spacing (EFS), especially in the case of nonzero dispersion shifted fiber.