Enhancement of Error Correction in Quantum Cryptography BB84 Protocol

The Quantum Cryptography BB84 protocol has proved to be quite successful in the process of Quantum Key Distribution (QKD). The protocol is used to create a secure key that is shared between two communicating parties. A major phase in this protocol is the correction of errors and discrepancies between keys of sender and receiver. The present work is concerned with enhancing the error correction phase in such protocol so that the keys generated would be created more efficiently; i.e., to enable the creation of longer shared keys in less time. For this purpose, we have introduced an algorithm based on the use of a memory structure between rounds of the error correction phase. The advantages of the algorithm presented in this paper are established using simulated experiments. A performance evaluation parameter is computed as the ratio of key length to the total operations needed to reach it. This value needs to be maximized for best performance. The experimental results have been compared through a parameterization model assuming that the relative increase in evaluation is linear in the block size increment. Parameters deduced from the experiments show that the performance of the enhanced algorithm is better by a factor of approximately 1.7 – 3.1 relative to the standard algorithm for initial block sizes ≥ 0.5 % of the key length, and by a factor of 1.15 – 1.30 for initial block sizes < 0.5 % of the key length.