To meet the needs of signal alignment between the transmitter and receiver in a quantum key distribution(QKD) system, we put forward a TDC-GPX-based synchronization scheme, which is based on high-precision time measurement. We send a low-frequency repeat optical pulse synchronized with associated quantum signals on the receiver’s side by using a time-to-digital converter(TDC)module, the time intervals between quantum signals, and synchronization signals measured and converted to corresponding temporal orders to complete the synchronization.We state the principle of the synchronization scheme in detail and then verify it in an actual QKD test bed. The test results show that our TDC-GPX-based synchronization can obtain a time resolution better than 100 ps, and the proposed scheme shows full feasibility for an actual QKD system.
To meet the needs of signal alignment between the transmitter and receiver in a quantum key distribution (QKD) system, we put forward a TDC-GPX-based syn- chronization scheme, which is based on high-precision time measurement. We send a low-frequency repeat optical pulse synchronized with associated quantum signals on the receiver's side by using a time-to-digital converter (TDC) module, the time intervals between quantum signals, and synchronization signals measured and converted to corre- sponding temporal orders to complete the synchronization. We state the principle of the synchronization scheme in detail and then verify it in an actual QKD test bed. The test results show that our TDC-GPX-based synchronization can obtain a time resolution better than 100 ps, and the pro- posed scheme shows full feasibility for an actual QKD system.