Experimental 4-intensity decoy-state quantum key distribution with asymmetric basis detector efficiency

Abstract: The decoy-state method has been developed rapidly in quantum key distribution (QKD) since it is immune to photon-number splitting attacks. However, two basis detector efficiency asymmetry, which exists in realistic scenarios, has been ignored in the prior results. By using the recent 4-intensity decoy-state optimization protocol, we report the first implementation of high-rate QKD with asymmetric basis detector efficiency, demonstrating 1.9 to 33.2 times higher key rate than previous protocols in the situation of large basis detector efficiency asymmetry. The results ruled out an implicitly assumption in QKD that the efficiency of Z basis and X basis are restricted to be same. This work paves the way towards a more practical QKD setting.