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Review of Scientific Instruments

High-speed quantum-random number generation by continuous measurement of arrival time of photons

Qiurong Yan, Baosheng Zhao, Hua Zhang, Qinghong Liao, Hao Yang

Published Jul 1, 2015• 31 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We demonstrate a novel high speed and multi-bit optical quantum random number generator by continuously measuring arrival time of photons with a common starting point. To obtain the unbiased and post-processing free random bits, the measured photon arrival time is converted into the sum of integral multiple of a fixed period and a phase time. Theoretical and experimental results show that the phase time is an independent and uniform random variable. A random bit extraction method by encoding the phase time is proposed. An experimental setup has been built and the unbiased random bit generation rate could reach 128 Mb/s, with random bit generation efficiency of 8 bits per detected photon. The random numbers passed all tests in the statistical test suite.

DOI
10.1063/1.4927320

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