A Quantum-Classical Codesign Framework for Security Enhanced Quantum Networks
He Li · 2024
Secure quantum communication networks with multiple quantum key distribution (QKD) links have witnessed a booming development in the past decade. When the quantum network structure becomes complicated with a large number of users, it is important to investigate security issues, particularly in terms of quantum key distillation and key management, which are required to be performed at trusted nodes within the quantum network. In this work, we propose a novel cross-layer security enhancement framework based on key authentication and graph theory in quantum networks. We first build an efficient and adaptive framework for the integration of quantum key distillation and quantum key management. We then utilize final quantum keys to build a secure authentication between quantum key distribution links and key management parties. We finally evaluate our framework with cross-layer security enhancement techniques, to allow efficient key scheduling and distribution in quantum networks. Our framework can be directly integrated into current metropolitan and free-space quantum network infrastructure, and potentially be a standard classical-quantum codesign method for quantum network architecture explorations.