Effect of imperfect Faraday mirrors on the security of a Faraday–Michelson quantum cryptography system

The one-way Faraday–Michelson system is a very useful practical quantum cryptography system where Faraday mirrors (FMs) play an important role. In this paper we analyze the security of this system against imperfect FMs. We consider the security loophole caused by imperfect FMs in Alice’s and Bob’s security zones. Then we implement a passive FM attack in this system. By changing the values of the imperfection parameters of Alice’s FMs, we calculate the quantum bit error rate between Alice and Bob induced by Eve and the probability that Eve obtains outcomes successfully. It is shown that the imperfection of one of Alice’s two FMs makes the system sensitive to an attack. Finally we give a modified key rate as a function of the FM imperfections. The security analysis indicates that both Alice’s and Bob’s imperfect FMs can compromise the secure key.