Entangled-photon quantum cryptography

Summary form only given. Quantum cryptography uses single photons to allow secure distribution of secret key material to sender and receiver, without the possibility of an undetected eavesdropper. In the protocol suggested by Ekert, each photon of a quantum-mechanically entangled pair is sent to the sender and receiver, who randomly measure the polarization in various bases. If the bases are the same, then sender and receiver will have completely correlated measurement results, which become the shared secret key. Other combinations of measurements are used to test Bell's inequalities, which limit the possible correlations achievable with any local realistic theory. The presence of an intermediate eavesdropper can be readily detected by an inability to violate Bell's inequality. Using the polarization-entangled photon pairs from a novel spontaneous parametric down-conversion source, we have experimentally implemented. Ekert's proposal.