Experimental demonstration of counterfactual quantum communication

• Published in: Physical review letters 2012-07, Vol.109 (3), p.030501-030501, Article 030501
• Main Authors: Liu, Yang, Ju, Lei, Liang, Xiao-Lei, Tang, Shi-Biao, Tu, Guo-Liang Shen, Zhou, Lei, Peng, Cheng-Zhi, Chen, Kai, Chen, Teng-Yun, Chen, Zeng-Bing, Pan, Jian-Wei
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0031-9007; 1079-7114
• DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.030501

Quantum effects, besides offering substantial superiority in many tasks over classical methods, are also expected to provide interesting ways to establish secret keys between remote parties. A striking scheme called "counterfactual quantum cryptography" proposed by Noh [Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 230501 (2009).] allows one to maintain secure key distributions, in which particles carrying secret information are seemingly not being transmitted through quantum channels. We have experimentally demonstrated, for the first time, a faithful implementation for such a scheme with an on-table realization operating at telecom wavelengths. To verify its feasibility for extension over a long distance, we have furthermore reported an illustration on a 1 km fiber. In both cases, high visibilities of more than 98% are achieved through active stabilization of interferometers. Our demonstration is crucial as a direct verification of such a remarkable application, and this procedure can become a key communication module for revealing fundamental physics through counterfactuals.