%0 Journal Article
%T Active phase compensation of quantum key distribution system
%A Wei Chen
%A ZhengFu Han
%A XiaoFan Mo
%A FangXing Xu
%A Guo Wei
%A GuangCan Guo
%J Chinese Science Bulletin
%@ 1861-9541
%D 2008
%I 
%R 10.1007/s11434-008-0023-0
%X Quantum key distribution (QKD) system must be robust enough in practical communication. Besides birefringence of fiber, system performance is notably affected by phase drift. The Faraday-Michelson QKD system can auto-compensate the birefringence of fiber, but phase shift is still a serious problem in its practical operation. In this paper, the major reason of phase drift and its effect on Faraday-Michelson QKD system is analyzed and an effective active phase compensation scheme is proposed. By this means, we demonstrate a quantum key distribution system which can stably run over 37-km fiber in practical working condition with the long-time averaged quantum bit error rate of 1.59% and the standard derivation of 0.46%. This result shows that the active phase compensation scheme is suitable to be used in practical QKD systems based on double asymmetric interferometers without additional devices and thermal controller.
%K quantum key distribution
%K Faraday-Michelson system
%K phase drift
%K active phase compensation
%U http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11434-008-0023-0