Secure Data Transmission Using Qubits

A quantum protocol for secure transmission of data using qubits is presented. This protocol sends one qubit in a round-trip to transmit one bit of data. The protocol offers an improvement over the BB84 QKD protocol. BB84, in conjunction with one-time pad encryption, has been shown to be unconditionally secure. However its security relies on the assumption that the qubit source device does not emit multiple replicas of the same qubit for each transmitted bit. If this happens a multi-qubit emission attack can be launched. In addition, BB84 cannot be used to send predetermined bit strings as it generates a random bit string in the process. Our protocol does not have the above drawbacks, but requires an authenticated public channel in order to detect an intruder, in the way as BB84. Our protocol does not require a shared secret key.