Hiding images in noise

Abstract

A limitation of free-space optical communications is the ease with which the information can be intercepted. This limitation can be overcome by hiding the information within background optical noise. We demonstrate the transfer of images over free-space using a photon-pair source emitting two correlated beams. One of these beams contains image information, to which noise is added, and the other correlated beam is used as a heralding trigger so that the intended recipient can differentiate this image signal from the background noise. The system uses spontaneous parametric down-conversion to create photon-pairs with a wide spectral bandwidth and a gated intensified camera to extract the image from the background noise. The high-dimensionality of the image space means that the information content can be many bits per detected photon, whereas the heralding photon can be restricted to a single spatial-mode within a secure fiber which itself could be protected against interception by traditional low-dimensionality quantum key protocols.