Journal Paper

Quantum key distribution relies on quantum mechanics to securely distribute cryptographic keys, offering security but necessitating complex infrastructure and significant resources for practical implementation. Quantum keyless private communication ensures information-theoretic security in free-space communication, with simpler setups, and without the need for secret keys by leveraging the wiretap channel model. This model requires assumptions about Eve’s ability to interact with the channel, consistent with the framework of physical-layer security. Here, we propose a variant of quantum keyless private communication using polarization encoding and experimentally validate both the original on-off keying method and the polarization-multiplexed approach using time-multiplexed threshold single-photon detectors as photon counting detectors. Our analysis highlights the advantages of polarization-multiplexed schemes for daylight operation. This work paves the way towards practical and scalable quantum communication systems, with potential applications extending to space-based communication.