A (t, n) threshold quantum image secret sharing scheme

In this paper, a (t, n)threshold quantum image secret sharing scheme based on combination theory is proposed. Here, the threshold t is a constant number that should satisfy the condition t <= n. In sharing process, the secret image is divided into n shadow images according to n sample matrices constructed by the combination theory and sent to n participants individually. During the recovery process, the original secret image can be fully restored if q(q >= t) participants are chosen. However, if the number of chosen participants is less than t, no information about the original secret image can be obtained. The quantum matrix multiplier is first introduced for encryption of the secret images. Then the quantum boolean AND gate is chosen for producing sample matrices. In the recovering steps, we use quantum boolean OR gates to collect shadow images. After that, the quantum circuits of the proposed scheme are given and the complexity of the circuits is discussed. We then conduct numerical simulations of our scheme on grayscale images and RGB images. The results shows that our scheme has a good effect on threshold quantum image secret sharing.