Six-State Quantum Key Distribution Using Photons with Orbital Angular Momentum

A new implementation of high-dimensional quantum key distribution (QKD) protocol is discussed. Using three mutual unbiased bases, we present a d−level six-state QKD protocol that exploits the orbital angular momentum with the spatial mode of the light beam. The protocol shows that the feature of a high capacity since keys are encoded using photon modes in d-level Hilbert space. The devices for state preparation and measurement are also discussed. This protocol has high security and the alignment of shared reference frames is not needed between sender and receiver.