Method and apparatus for distributing a quantum key

1. A method for distributing a quantum key, the method comprising:

sending a first photon to a first receiver;

sending a second photon to a second receiver, the first and second photons being a pair of time-energy entangled photons; and

providing a coding scheme comprising a plurality of time bins and a plurality of frequency bins, wherein a combination of a time bin and a frequency bin corresponds to a character.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the first photon and the second photon are sent via optical fiber.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the first photon and the second photon are sent via a photonic integrated chip.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the first photon and the second photon are sent through free space.

5. A method for distributing a quantum key, comprising:

generating a plurality of pairs of time-energy entangled photons;

for each pair of time-energy entangled photons, sending one photon to the first receiver and one photon to the second receiver; and

providing a coding scheme comprising a plurality of time bins and a plurality of frequency bins wherein each pair of one of the plurality of time bins and one of the plurality of frequency bins corresponds to one of a plurality of characters.

6. A method of receiving a quantum key, comprising:

receiving a first photon, the first photon being one of a pair of time-energy entangled photons;

detecting a time of arrival of the first photon;

detecting a frequency of the first photon; and

determining a character based on the detected time and frequency of the first photon.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein the determining a character step further comprises:

assigning the detected time to a time bin;

assigning the detected frequency to a frequency bin; and

determining the character from a coding scheme based on the time bin and the frequency bin.

8. The method of claim 6 , further comprising:

detecting whether an eavesdropper has detected the first photon by determining the frequency distribution of the first photon.

9. A method of receiving a quantum key, comprising:

receiving a plurality of photons, each of the plurality of photons being one of a pair of time-energy entangled photons;

detecting the time of arrival of each of the plurality of photons;

detecting the frequency of each of the plurality of photons; and

determining a character based on the detected time and frequency of each of the plurality of photons.