IEEE International Conference on Electronics, Circuits and Systems (ICECS)

A Compact TDC-based Quantum Random Number Generator

Nicola Massari, Leonardo Gasparini, Matteo Perenzoni, Georg Pucker, Alessandro Tomasi, Zahra Bisadi, Alessio Meneghetti, Lorenzo Pavesi

Published Nov 1, 2019• 8 citations

Publisher

Abstract

A compact quantum random number generator based on the measurement of the arrival time of photons is presented in this paper. The new system consists of a silicon nanocrystals light emitting device coupled with a SPAD-based detector, integrated in a 3D chip packaging. The miniaturization of the device allows a remarkable reduction of the system size with respect the state of the art. The detector consists of an array of 16 pixels connected to a cluster of 4 reconfigurable TDCs with 12 bit resolution each for photon time stamping. Maximum system bit rate, limited by the emission efficiency of the source, is 0.4 Mbps.

DOI: 10.1109/icecs46596.2019.8964941

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