RIS-Assisted THz MIMO Wireless System in the Presence of Direct Link for CV-QKD with Limited Quantum Memory

A reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)-aided multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wireless communication system is considered in this paper wherein the transmitter, Alice modulates secret keys, by using a continuous variable quantum key distribution technique to be transmitted to the receiver, Bob, which employs homodyne detection for data decoding. The data is transmitted over two paths, namely a direct path between Alice and Bob and the wireless path between them via the RIS. Transmit and receive beamsplitters are employed in the system to transform the MIMO terahertz channels into parallel single-input single-output channels. Considering an eavesdropper, Eve, to attack all the three wireless channels in the system (i.e., the direct channel, the channel between Alice and RIS, and between the RIS and Bob) but having restricted quantum memory limiting it to store the ancilla modes from either of these three wireless channels, novel expressions for the secret key rate (SKR) of the system are derived. Numerical results are presented to demonstrate the dependency of the system's performance on various system parameters. It is observed that the RIS plays a key role in increasing the SKR of the system and the transmission distance, ensuring secure communications between Alice and Bob. The significance of employing RIS is observed specifically for the case when Eve measures the ancilla modes of the channel between the RIS and Bob. Furthermore, for all such measurement scenarios, optimal angles are obtained for the phase shifts of the RIS elements to maximize the SKR for various MIMO configurations and transmission distance between Alice and Bob.