Preparing York Optical Ground Station for satellite-to-ground quantum communication

This thesis details the progress on the preparation of the York Optical
Ground Station in a semi-urban area for satellite-to-ground quantum
communication. A site study to take measurements of background
photon counts hasbeencarriedoutandhasbeenusedtocalculate
possible key rates for both BB84 and GMCS QKD which prove the vi
ability of the site for both day- and night-time quantum communica
tion. The predicted GMCS QKD protocol achieved a maximal secret
key rate of 0.22bps during the day, whilst BB84 protocol was predicted
to achieve 2.0×10−4bps using a 1550nm signal during the night and
up to 0.5×10−4bps during the day, or up to 5.5×10−4 using an 830nm
signal during the day.