2SWLFVDQG/DVHU7HFKQRORJ\

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Optics and Laser Technology

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/optlastec

Full length article

Impact security enhancement in chaotic quantum cryptography 7

a,⁎ a,b
Mahdi H. Al Hasani , Kais A. Al Naimee
a
Department of Physics, College of Science, University of Baghdad, Baghdad, Iraq
b
Istituto Nazionale di Ottica-CNR, Largo E Fermi 6, 50125 Firenze, Italy

H IG H L IG HT S

• The quantum key has been created experimentally and numerically using BB84 protocol.
• The presence of eavesdropping cause to non-synchronization of bits between Alice and Bob.
• The mixing of quantum key with chaotic signal enhances the security of quantum cryptography and lead to ultimate security.

A R TIC L E INFO A B S TR A C T

Keywords: In this paper the experimental and the numerical study of an optical key distribution quantum cryptography
Quantum cryptography using BB84 protocol has been achieved. We create secret quantum key and the security of BB84 protocol is tested
BB84 protocol by inserting Eve in the system, the presence of Eve will cause disturbance to the synchronization of qubits
Nonlinear dynamic between Alice and Bob and lead to bits errors. Finally we enhance the security of quantum cryptography using
Ultimate security
one-time pad technique and chaotic signal generated by semiconductor laser with an optical feedback. Mixing
Chaos
quantum key with chaotic signal will make ultimate security of the system.

1. Introduction
As a result of current technological developments, the computer can
now be found in all layers of our society and the possibilities for
communication have grown immensely [1]. During this time when the
Internet provides essential communication among tens of millions of
people and is being increasingly used as a tool for commerce, the se-
curity becomes one of the most important tasks in wired and wireless
network that can ensure the confidentiality and the integrity of data
over the insecure channel [2,3]. In the communication fields, crypto-
graphic technique is commonly used for secure communications; one of
the new techniques in the information security field is the quantum
cryptography, in which the laws of quantum mechanics are applied to
create new cryptographic primitives [4]. Quantum cryptography is re-
latively new in the information security world, it give very promising
solution to the issue of information security [5,6]. Quantum crypto-
graphy features a unique way of sharing a random sequence of bits
between users with a certifiable security not attainable with either
public or secret-key classical cryptographic systems [7]. This is
achieved by means of quantum key distribution (QKD) techniques. QKD
relies on exploiting the laws of quantum mechanics that are often
viewed in other contexts of physics as limiting or negative [8]. QKD
provides two parties, a sender Alice and a receiver Bob to distribute a
secret key in a way that guarantees the detection of any eavesdropping
(Eve) [9]. Any information obtained by an unauthorized third party
(Eve) about the exchanged key goes along with an increase of the
quantum bit error rate (QBER) of the transmitted data which can be
checked using a suitable subset of the data similarly [10,11]. The first
Quantum Key Distribution protocol is introduced in 1984 by Charles
Bennett and Gilles Brassard known as BB84 protocol [12]. The BB84
protocol has been proven to be unconditionally secure, which are based
on the laws of quantum mechanics and uses polarization-coding to
realize the key distribution [13]. This protocol is based on Heisenberg’s
Uncertainty Principle which states that one cannot measure the prop-
erties of a photon like spin, polarization, etc. without being introducing
any errors or deviation of the normal photon transmission which can
easily be detected [14,15]. This can guarantee that any eavesdropper
try to measure the photon that send from Alice to Bob will cause dis-
turbing to the photons state in a noticeable way.
It enables two parties to share a random secret key which only
known to them to encrypt and decrypt the message [16]. In this paper
the BB84 protocol will be study experimentally and numerically and
shows how key generate in this protocol and use this key to encrypt text
message using one-time pad technique. Finally the security of BB84 will

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: mahdialhassany@yahoo.com (M.H. Al Hasani).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.optlastec.2019.105575
Received 5 November 2018; Received in revised form 3 March 2019; Accepted 17 May 2019
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M.H. Al Hasani and K.A. Al Naimee 2SWLFVDQG/DVHU7HFKQRORJ\

Fig. 1. Quantum Cryptography Setup with the Bases + (0° and 90°) and × (−45° and 45°).

enhanced by mixing the generated quantum key with chaotic signal
obtained from semiconductor laser with optical feedback, this means
that two encoding methods (chaos cryptography and quantum crypto-
graphy) are mixed together to produce a highly secure link. Mixing
chaos and quantum key represents a novel technique in secure com-
munications that totally depends on the laws of physics.
2. Methods and results
The setup of BB84 protocol is shown in Fig. 1. The sending unit
“Alice” consists of a single photon source which is polarized horizon-
tally and a /2 plate.
The first part of Alice is the laser; the CPS635R Collimated Laser
Diode Module is used to get parallel beam in our experiment. It has a
typical center wavelength close to 636.5 nm and produces an output
beam that has a Gaussian cross section distribution. The second part of
Alice is a /2 plate. It rotates the polarization of the incident light by
double the physical rotation angle of the wave plate (polarization ro-
tator).
The receiving unit “Bob” consists of polarization rotator, polarizing
beamsplitter (PBS) and two detectors. The polarizing beamsplitter cube
reflects the vertically polarized (90°) component of the incident light,
while passing the horizontally polarized (0°) component. The two de-
tectors are connected to the electronic and they detect the incoming
photon from Alice.
Since polarization rotator has two bases + and ×, Alice has to make
two random decisions for key generating. Bob also sets his polarization
rotator to differentiate between + and × bases. Accordingly Bob only
needs the settings 0° and 45°. If Bob select the + basis and Alice sends
in the + basis, Bob obtains an unambiguous result; this applies corre-
spondingly if both choose the × basis. But what if Bob chooses a dif-
ferent basis than Alice; the result is that 45° polarized light will be sent
to the beamsplitter. For a continuous beam, half is transmitted and half
is reflected. However, assuming that only one photon is sent, only one
of the two detectors can respond. The detector that responds is then left
to chance. If the two bases do not match, Bob will nevertheless measure
a signal on one of the two detectors. The probability of detecting the
photon on one of the two detectors is 50% respectively. In Table 1,
different cases are shown as an overview.
2.1. Eavesdropping
Eavesdropper (Eve) consists of the same components as both Alice
and Bob, only in the reverse sequence. This is shown in Fig. 2.
Eve is located in a position to measure the light coming from Alice
and then attempt to transmit the identical information to Bob. Consider
the following two possibilities:
• Eve chooses the same basis as Alice: In this case, Eve measures the
signal that Alice sends correctly. Now Bob randomly chooses his
basis, and once again there are two possibilities:
o Bob chooses the same basis as Alice: Eve transmits the signal
correctly using the same basis.
o Bob chooses the other basis: The basis used to receive the signal is
different than the basis of the signal transmitted by Eve.
Therefore, one of his detectors will respond at random. However,
when Alice and Bob now compare their bases, this measurement is
discarded anyway because of the different bases used by Alice and
Bob.
• Eve chooses the wrong basis: In this case, Eve chooses a basis that
differs from the one used by Alice and one of Eve's detectors will
respond at random. Therefore, Eve is not able to judge whether she
chose the correct basis. When Eve sends her signal to Bob, she will
send the bit in the same basis that she received Alice's signal with.
Because Bob is also randomly choosing his basis, there are two
possibilities:
o Bob chooses a different basis than Alice: This measurement is
discarded after Alice and Bob compare bases.
o Bob chooses the same basis as Alice: This represents a case where
Alice and Bob obtain different bits with the same bases (which can
never happen without third party interference).
The individual cases are presented again briefly in Table 2 for an
overview. Only the cases where Alice and Bob use the same bases are
considered here. The remaining measurements are discarded during the
basis comparison process.

Table 1
A different cases of which detectors detect the incoming photon from Alice. 2.2. Setup for quantum key and chaos

Alice Bob
We develop a method to increase the security of quantum crypto-
Basis Bit Angle Basis Angle Detector “0” Detector “1”
graphy, this method involve the creation of chaotic signal by a semi-
conductor laser with an Optical feedback using optical loop mirrors
+ 0 0° + 0° 100% 0% [17]. This signal is integrating with quantum cryptography as shown in
+ 1 90° + 0° 0% 100% Fig. 3.
× 1 45° + 0° 50% 50%
× 0 −45° + 0° 50% 50%
+ 0 0° × 45° 50% 50% 2.3. Simulation
+ 1 90° × 45° 50% 50%
× 1 45° × 45° 100% 0%
× 0 −45° × 45° 0% 100% The various stages of BB84 protocol are simulated during this work.
In this stage several considerations are taken into account like:


M.H. Al Hasani and K.A. Al Naimee 2SWLFVDQG/DVHU7HFKQRORJ\

Fig. 2. Eavesdropper Eve between Alice and Bob.

Table 2 In our numerical treatment eavesdropping is applied randomly,

Different cases of error in bit when Eve is exist in the system. optional to be applied. The simulation assumed that Eve uses Intercept/
Basis used by Alice and Basis used by Error? Bits match for Alice and Resend strategy, she detect the photon sent by Alice and resend photon
Bob Eve Bob to Bob, that will cause errors and lead to non-synchronization of bits,
because Eve likes Bob, she will chooses random bases to measure the
++ + No 100%
photon come from Alice. After her measurement, she has to send
++ × In part 50%
×× + In part 50%
photon to Bob in the same basis she detected, so when she chooses
×× × No 100% wrong bases she will cause errors in the bits received by Bob.

2.4. Security of BB84 protocol

Fig. 3. Block diagram illustrate chaotic signal mixed with encrypted message.
• Alice randomly chooses her polarization bases and bits, Bob also
choose his bases randomly.
• The quantum channel is assumed to be free space.
• The noise and effect of quantum channel are neglected.
• The source is assumed to be perfectly single photon source.
• The error is estimated to calculate the QBER define as:
Alice sends random qubits through random bases, Eve as Bob will
use random bases to get Alice qubits, then passes the qubits she get to
Bob using the same bases that use to detect Alice qubits. If Eve by
chance uses the same basis as Alice, she will correctly send the qubit to
Bob without making errors. If however, she used the incorrect basis, her
measurement changes the quantum state, so that Bob has a 50% chance
of measuring either 0 or 1 bit, this lead to an errors. Eve guesses the
incorrect basis 50% of the time, and 50% of these cases lead to an error,
so on average Eve presences leads to 25% of the key bits being in-
correct. The number of same basis choosing by Alice and Bob and Alice
and Eve as a function to number of qubits sent have been tested ex-
perimentally and numerically. In Fig. 4a the experimental result shows
that from 200 qubits sent by Alice; Bob successfully choose the same
basis 113 times this mean nearly half of the sent qubit from Alice and
the correct basis that Eve get is 47 times from 200 qubits which is
nearly half of what Bob received, we can say that the percentage of Bob
obtains the qubit in same basis is 50% and for Eve is 25%. The same

QBER =
NO. of error percentages are nearly obtained from numerical result as shown in
NO . of the key (1) Fig. 4b. From 200 qubits sent, Bob correctly choose the same basis 89
times and Eve 39 times which mean nearly 50% for Bob and 25% for

• Eavesdropping is also included randomly. Eve. This mean the percentage of Eve make errors is 75% (at Bob's end),

• If the QBER ≥ 15%, the process of creating key stop and the pro- whereas Bob is expecting to see only 50% of the photons. In other
words, since Alice later sends Bob her bases, he can go back and check
tocol repeated again [11].
his table for the bits whose values were supposed to stay constant. Eve's

Fig. 4. Same bit sent in same basis from Alice to Bob and Alice to Eve (a) Experimental and (b) Numerical.


M.H. Al Hasani and K.A. Al Naimee
Fig. 5. Number of errors as a function of number of bits (a) Experimental and (b) Numerical.
interference will change half of the photons that were supposed to re-
main constant.
Experimentally, Fig. 5a shows the probability of Eve making errors
is increase with increasing the qubits sent by Alice. The numerical result
shows similar behavior to the experimental as shown in Fig. 5b. From
these figures we show that the error that Eve make when sending 256
bits is larger than the error make when sending 128 bits, this means the
impact errors increase with increasing the number of qubits sent by
Alice, so it is very important to send large number of qubits to force Eve
to make errors so we can reveal her existence.
The probability or error rate of Eve detection is calculated using Eq.
(1), we start with 8 bits then we increase the number of bits by 8 bits
step and calculated the probability. This process is repeated until we
reach 128 bits, then we repeat this procedure from beginning until we
reach 256 bits. These probabilities are plotted as a function to the
number of bits. We saw that in both 128 and 256 bits the distribution of
probabilities is random as shown in Fig. 6a. The same behavior
achieved from the numerical treatment as shown in Fig. 6b, so the
presence of Eve cause errors, from these errors we calculate the prob-
ability of errors and these probabilities are not constant but change in
every time Eve tries to eavesdropping on qubits sent by Alice depending
on her success or failure to choose the same bases used by Alice. This
probability gives us indication of the presence of Eve so we have to stop
the communication link and start the process from beginning to create
new key.
2.5. Message encryption
To create the key, Alice needs first to send number of qubits using
Fig. 6. The relationship between probability of Eve detection and number of bits (a) Experimental and (b) Numerical.

2SWLFVDQG/DVHU7HFKQRORJ\
random bases to Bob which is also used random bases to receive the
qubits [18]. In our work the quantum key is generated experimentally
and numerically. The setup in Fig. 1 has been utilized to crate the key as
follow:
• Alice send 118 qubits using random bases (× or +) and random bits
to Bob.
• Bob receive 118 qubits from Alice using random bases (× or +).
• Compare Alice and Bob bases publicly and discard the different
bases and keep only the same bases.
• Alice and Bob reveal some of bits to test the presence of Eve.
The bits obtained from the same bases will represent the shared key
between Alice and Bob, after discarding the different bases and remove
bits that used for testing Eve we obtained secret key of length 56 bits
experimentally.
Key: 111001011000000110011011100000111100110001010011
11001111
This key will be used to encrypt a text message “QUANTUM”, the
procedure of encrypt the text message is as follow:
• First each letter is represent with eight binary:
Q: 01001001,
U: 01011001,
A: 00001001,
N: 00111011,
T: 01001111,
M.H. Al Hasani and K.A. Al Naimee 2SWLFVDQG/DVHU7HFKQRORJ\

U: 01011001,
M: 00111001,
the message become:
Message: 010010010101100100001001001110110100111101
01100100111001
• Now we encrypt this message with secret key using the One-Time
pad technique, the key is add with the message using XOR gate.
Key: 11100101100000011001101110000011110011000101
001111001111
Message: 0100100101011001000010010011101101001111010
1100100111001
Encrypted message: 10101100110110001001001010111000
100000110000101011110110
• Alice sends the encrypted message using the + basis (0° to indicate
0 and 90° to indicate 1). She therefore selects the following angle Fig. 7. Experimental encrypted message in pulse shape.
settings in the sequence below:
90°, 0°, 90°, 0°, 90°, 90° ,………………………90°, 0°
• Bob receives Alice’s transmission using the + basis as well (reflected
light = 1, transmitted light = 0). Bob will obtain the following bits:
Encrypted message: 1010110011011000100100101011100
0100000110000101011110110
Bob then use the same key to decode the message (using XOR gate
to add key with the encrypted message).
Key: 1110010110000001100110111000001111001100010100
1111001111
Message: 01001001010110010000100100111011010011110
101100100111001

Bob know that each 8 bits represent one letter so he retrieves the
text message correctly.
The key is also generated numerically. In the simulation Alice send
Fig. 8. Numerical encrypted message in pulse shape.
qubits randomly to Bob who choose his bases randomly also, then
compare their bases and neglect the different once and keep the same
bases to generate the quantum key. Here the text message “QUANTUM” 110
will be encrypted, as mentioned earlier we need first to represents each
letter with 8 bits. The text message will become as: And the numerical encrypted message is shown in Fig. 8.

Message: 0100100101011001000010010011101101001111010 Numerical Encrypted message for text word QUANTUM:

1100100111001
The message length is 56 bits so we need to create a secret key of
length 56 bits in order to encrypt this message, Alice send 120 bits to
Bob and they obtain key of length 56 bits.
Key: 000001011000010010010000111111001011101001011
11101001110
then we add this key with the message and get the encrypted message:
Encrypted message: 01001100110111011001100111000111
111101010000011001110111
Alice sends the encrypted message using the + basis to Bob who
used the same basis to receive data from Alice and he use the same key
to decrypt the received message from Alice.
2.6. Mixing quantum key with chaotic signal
We enhance the security of BB84 protocol by mixing the message
encrypted by quantum key and chaotic signal.
First, we need to convert the encrypted message from binary bits to
pulse shape. Fig. 7 shows the experimental encrypted message in pulse
shape.
Experimental encrypted message for text word QUANTUM:
10101100110110001001001010111000100000110000101011110
01001100110111011001100111000111111101010000011001110
111
After converting encrypted message to strain of pulses, we experi-
mentally produce optical chaotic signal using semiconductor laser with
an optical feedback [17]. The numerical chaotic signal is generated
using the two rate equation of Lang and Kobayashi model [19,20].
The train of pulses of encrypted message and chaotic signal are
brings together. In order to mix chaos and quantum key perfectly it
requires that choosing chaotic signal with spike rate compatible with
the bit rate of quantum key. Figs. 9 and 10 illustrate experimental and
numerical chaotic signals mixed with encrypted message, these figures
show that the encrypted message is successfully hidden within chaotic
signals with a highly masking degree. Mixing of quantum cryptography
and chaos creates very secure system. Now, if Eve somehow succeeded
in knowing the quantum key, she cannot get the message since it cannot
breakthrough chaos. This makes us close to the ultimate security of
communication.
3. Conclusions
In conclusions, describing and analyzing the quantum cryptography
using BB84 protocol have been satisfied experimentally and numeri-
cally. We conclude that in the process of creating key, the presence of
Eve lead to non-synchronization of bits between Alice and Bob, then
impact errors increased. Finally we show that chaotic signal can be
mixed with quantum encrypted data to enhance the security of the
communications link, and for ultimate security the spike rate of chaotic


M.H. Al Hasani and K.A. Al Naimee
Fig. 9. Experimental mixed chaotic signal and encrypted message (a) time series and (b) The Fast Fourier Transformation (FFT).
Fig. 10. Numerical mixed chaotic signal and encrypted message (a) time series and (b) The Fast Fourier Transformation (FFT).
signal should be compatible with bit rate of encrypted message. This
mixing has resulted in a novel technique that enhances the impact se-
curity of data transfer.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank and express their gratitude to Sora
Fahmi Abdalah (Informatics and Telecommunications Public Company)
for her consultations and remarks regarding to our work by her inter-
action with our group, we got a good benefit during our research work.
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