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Journal of Lightwave Technology

Sub-Tb/s Physical Random Bit Generators Based on Direct Detection of Amplified Spontaneous Emission Signals

Apostolos Argyris, Evangelos Pikasis, Stavros Deligiannidis, Dimitris Syvridis

Published Feb 21, 2012• 79 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The most common optical amplified spontaneous emission sources can become the ultimate tools for the generation of ultra-broadband truly random bit sequences (TRBS). By using a straightforward configuration we experimentally prove that the amplified spontaneous emission noise of an optical amplifier-either an Er+3-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) or an InGaAs semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA)-is an efficient source for TRBS generation. A bit rate up to 560 Gb/s has been recorded, seeded by the direct detection of the unfiltered spontaneous-spontaneous (sp-sp) optical intensity beat noise on a broadband photoreceiver. The generation rate is practically limited only by the detection bandwidth, the electronic digitization process and the post-processing circuitry. The proposed mechanism passes the existing benchmarks of randomness.

DOI
10.1109/jlt.2012.2188377

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The most common optical amplified spontaneous emission sources can become the ultimate tools for the generation of ultra-broadband truly random bit sequences (TRBS). By using a straightforward configuration we experimentally prove that the amplified spontaneous emission noise of an optical amplifier-either an Er+3-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) or an InGaAs semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA)-is an efficient source for TRBS generation. A bit rate up to 560 Gb/s has been recorded, seeded by the direct detection of the unfiltered spontaneous-spontaneous (sp-sp) optical intensity beat noise on a broadband photoreceiver. The generation rate is practically limited only by the detection bandwidth, the electronic digitization process and the post-processing circuitry. The proposed mechanism passes the existing benchmarks of randomness.
We present a photonic approach for fast quantum random number generation based on optically sampled amplified spontaneous emission (ASE). This approach utilizes a terahertz optical asymmetric demultiplexer to sample the ASE and then digitize the sampled optical pulses into random bits using a multi-bit parallel comparator. A proof-of-concept experiment demonstrates that 40 Gb/s random bits with verified randomness can be obtained using our method. The current generation rate is mainly limited by the bandwidth of the available ASE source.
We report a 16.8 Tb/s true random number generator (TRNG) based on amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) of Erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA), which is sliced into 42 parallel channels by an arrayed waveguide grating (AWG). The true randomness of ASE is enhanced and guaranteed by a novel extraction approach utilizing two orthogonal polarized components of ASE. Consequently, the random number generation rate (RNGR) can be significantly increased via higher sampling rate. The experimental results show that, the single-channel RNGR of 400 Gb/s is achieved, while the overall RNGR is 16.8 Tb/s for the full ASE spectrum. The proposed TRNG is of great significance in the field of secret key distribution and confidential communication.
Amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) noise with inherent quantum nature is promising for true random number generator (TRNG) and secure key generation and distribution (SKGD). A high-speed TRNG and a physical-layer SKGD scheme are proposed and demonstrated using the polarization dynamics of an ASE source. The ASE-based randomness is enhanced in TRNG using digital signal processing on the two orthogonal polarization modes, while the fluctuation of the state of polarization (SOP) in ASE is applied as the random source in SKGD. A 16.8 Tb/s TRNG is successfully demonstrated with spectrum slicing of ASE. An error-free SKGD with a key generation rate (KGR) of 10.1 Gb/s is demonstrated over a 10-km standard single-mode fiber channel.
We propose a scheme for random bit generation with filtered amplified spontaneous emission (ASE). Using the filtered ASE, we can get larger signal fluctuations than when using directly detected ASE with a photodetector. Utilizing the delayed self-difference technique to improve the symmetry of filtered ASE, we experimentally achieve real-time 2.5-Gbit/s random sequence generation, which matches with the speeds of fiber communication for one-time pad encryption. Experimental results show that the generated random sequences can pass NIST tests as long as the delay time is beyond a threshold value, which is called the minimum delay time (MDT). Further simulation results indicate that there is a certain relationship between the MDT and bandwidth of the ASE signal.
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Using a super-luminescent emitting diode (SLED) source with a linewidth of more than 60 nm, we realize truly random number generation up to 100 Gb s −1 by directly measuring the intensity noise, which originates from the fluctuations of spontaneous emissions. Furthermore, we propose a post-processing method in an over-sampling scheme by eliminating the correlation between adjacent samples, and achieve an ultra-high truly random number generation rate of 1.6 Tb s −1 . The randomness of the generated bit stream is verified using standard statistical test suites (Diehard and NIST-STS), and evaluated using a three-standard-deviation criterion and Shannon entropy estimation.