In recent years, noticeable progress has been made in the development of quantum equipment, reflected through the number of successful demonstrations of Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) technology. Although they showcase the great achievements of QKD, many practical difficulties still need to be resolved. Inspired by the significant similarity between mobile ad-hoc networks and QKD technology, we propose a novel quality of service (QoS) model including new metrics for determining the states of public and quantum channels as well as a comprehensive metric of the QKD link. We also propose a novel routing protocol to achieve high-level scalability and minimize consumption of cryptographic keys. Given the limited mobility of nodes in QKD networks, our routing protocol uses the geographical distance and calculated link states to determine the optimal route. It also benefits from a caching mechanism and detection of returning loops to provide effective forwarding while minimizing key consumption and achieving the desired utilization of network links. Simulation results are presented to demonstrate the validity and accuracy of the proposed solutions.

An energy-aware solution for physical-layer reconfigurability in metro-access networks is presented. The dynamicity of optical switching is introduced in nodes that are perceived as fully-passive by the network. Energy scavenging at low optical feed level of -10dBm supports field-deployment without local electrical power supply. Two types of network nodes are demonstrated experimentally. First, a resilience node is evaluated for fast protection switching in 10.7 ms at the feeder segment. Optical switching is further exploited for the purpose of dynamic allocation of spectral slices and routing in a new class of reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer. The spectral bandwidth of drop segments can be extended on demand while intranetwork communication among different segments of the access network is also enabled. Finally, we discuss the potential for realizing self-powering by means of tapping optical signals traversing the access network rather than utilizing a dedicated pump source.