Effect of electromagnetic disturbance on the practical QKD system in the smart grid

To improve the security of the smart grid, quantum key distribution (QKD) is an excellent choice. The rapid fluctuations on the power aerial optical cable and electromagnetic disturbance in substations are two main challenges for implementation of QKD. Due to insensitivity to birefringence of the channel, the stable phase-coding Faraday—Michelson QKD system is very practical in the smart grid. However, the electromagnetic disturbance in substations on this practical QKD system should be considered. The disturbance might change the rotation angle of the Faraday mirror, and would introduce an additional quantum bit error rate (QBER). We derive the new fringe visibility of the system and the additional QBER from the electromagnetic disturbance. In the worst case, the average additional QBER only increases about 0.17% due to the disturbance, which is relatively small to normal QBER values. We also find the way to degrade the electromagnetic disturbance on the QKD system.