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QCLight: A Unified Quantum-Classical Optical Communication System via BB84 and Pulse Position Modulation
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DOI：10.1109/jsac.2026.3708625.png)
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Abstract
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We propose QCLight (Quantum-Classical Light), a unified quantum-classical optical communication system that simultaneously supports classical data transmission and quantum key distribution (QKD) over a shared free-space optical (FSO) link. The system employs a novel Bennett–Brassard 1984 (BB84) with pulse position modulation scheme that embeds polarization-encoded qubits and time-bin-encoded classical symbols into a common symbol frame, enabling physical-layer integration and hardware reuse. A full transceiver architecture is developed, combining polarization-resolved encoding with time-multiplexed photon detection to jointly decode quantum and classical information using a shared single-photon detection chain. To assess system performance under realistic conditions, we develop a comprehensive analytical framework that captures key impairments including photon-counting noise, detector dead time, atmospheric turbulence (modeled via Gamma-Gamma fading), and pointing errors. Closed-form expressions are derived for critical metrics such as the symbol error rate (SER), achievable mutual information, quantum bit error rate (QBER), and secret key rate (SKR), incorporating dead-time-limited Poisson statistics and fading distributions via Meijer-<inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$G$ </tex-math></inline-formula> functions. Theoretical predictions are validated through Monte Carlo simulations, confirming that QCLight enables secure and efficient dual-purpose communication in photon-starved UAV and satellite-ground FSO scenarios.
Keywords:
Quantum key distribution (QKD)
pulse position modulation (PPM)
detector dead time
symbol error rate (SER)
secret key rate (SKR)
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