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IEEE Photonics Technology Letters

40Gb/s Secure Optical Communication Based on Symbol-by-Symbol Optical Phase Encryption

Zhensen Gao, Yuehua An, Anbang Wang, Pu Li, Yuwen Qin, Yuncai Wang, Xu Wang

Published Jun 5, 2020• 16 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Achieving high speed physical layer security is a constant pursuit but critical challenge for the information society. In this paper, a novel symbol-by-symbol optical phase encryption technique relying on ultra-long, reconfigurable optical phase patterns and commercial off-the-shelf dispersive components is proposed for high speed physical layer security. A record 40Gb/s secure optical communication system with symbol overlapped, optical phase encrypted differential-phase-shift-keying modulated signal is experimentally demonstrated based on the proposed technique. Security robustness against various eavesdropper's attacks has been validated for three optical codes with a chip rate of 40Gchip/s and variable code-length of 128-chip, 512-chip and 1024-chip, respectively. The demonstrated technique exhibits the advantages of supporting high bit rate operation and advanced optical modulation formats, improving code flexibility and cardinality, which makes it very promising for future ultra-fast secure optical communication.

DOI
10.1109/lpt.2020.3000215

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Achieving high speed physical layer security is a constant pursuit but critical challenge for the information society. In this paper, a novel symbol-by-symbol optical phase encryption technique relying on ultra-long, reconfigurable optical phase patterns and commercial off-the-shelf dispersive components is proposed for high speed physical layer security. A record 40Gb/s secure optical communication system with symbol overlapped, optical phase encrypted differential-phase-shift-keying modulated signal is experimentally demonstrated based on the proposed technique. Security robustness against various eavesdropper's attacks has been validated for three optical codes with a chip rate of 40Gchip/s and variable code-length of 128-chip, 512-chip and 1024-chip, respectively. The demonstrated technique exhibits the advantages of supporting high bit rate operation and advanced optical modulation formats, improving code flexibility and cardinality, which makes it very promising for future ultra-fast secure optical communication.
We propose and experimentally demonstrate a 40 Gb/s secure optical communication system with on-off-keying (OOK) modulation format by using a time domain spectral phase en/decoding scheme, which employs a highly dispersive element and high-speed phase modulator for introducing significant symbol overlapping for both the encoded and incorrectly decoded noiselike signals to enhance the information security against eavesdropping using a power detector. The influence of dispersion and chip modulation rate on the symbol overlapping of the incorrectly decoded signal has been analytically investigated and experimentally verified. Security enhancement for 40 Gb/s OOK data using fast reconfigurable 40 Gchip/s optical codes with code lengths of up to 1024 has been demonstrated and compared with a 10 Gb/s system.
We propose and experimentally demonstrate a time-domain bit-by-bit code-shifting scheme that can rapidly program ultralong, code-length variable optical code by using only a dispersive element and a high-speed phase modulator for improving information security. The proposed scheme operates in the bit overlap regime and could eliminate the vulnerability of extracting the code by analyzing the fine structure of the time-domain spectral phase encoded signal. It is also intrinsically immune to eavesdropping via conventional power detection and differential-phase-shift-keying (DPSK) demodulation attacks. With this scheme, 10 Gbits/s of return-to-zero-DPSK data secured by bit-by-bit code shifting using up to 1024 chip optical code patterns have been transmitted over 49 km error free. The proposed scheme exhibits the potential for high-data-rate secure optical communication and to realize even one time pad.
Providing physical layer security at the lowest network layer in fiber-optic communication systems is a technical challenge worldwide. Here, we propose and experimentally demonstrate a pure hardware optical encryption scheme based on temporal spreading and self-feedback phase encryption for high-speed and long-distance physical-layer secure optical communication. A record high bit-rate-distance product of 6400 Gb/s km is successfully achieved by the secure transmission of a 32 Gb/s on-off-keying modulated confidential signal over a 200 km optical fiber link. The demonstrated scheme is fully compatible with conventional optical transmission systems and can be operated in a pluggable manner, which may pave a new path to ultra-high-speed physical-layer secure optical communication in the future.
In this paper, we review the recent advances and demonstrations of time domain pseudorandom optical phase encoding technology for high speed 40Gb/s OOK and DPSK secure optical communication systems. Bit-by-bit code shifting technique for enhancing the information security is proposed and demonstrated in different optical transmission systems with various bit rates and modulation formats. The potential application of the proposed techniques for high speed secure optical transmission systems is envisioned.
High-order modulation format optical signals are widely deployed in modern optical networks but remain insufficiently protected at the physical layer, leading to significant security vulnerabilities. This work proposes an all-optical secure transmission scheme for 16QAM signals based on phase coding and dispersive stretching. The scheme employs symmetric cascaded in-phase and quadrature Mach–Zehnder modulators (IQMZMs) to realize phase encoding and decoding, providing a simple structure with good suitability for photonic integration. The universality of constant-envelope key signals within the proposed architecture is investigated, providing references for key-format and device selection in practical applications and important guidance for future research on all-optical digital encryption. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of all-optical digital encryption and decryption of 16QAM signals using high-order modulated key signals. Compared with existing schemes of the same category, the key space increases by a factor of2n2^{n}2n, wherennndenotes the number of symbols. Furthermore, the key signal undergoes dynamic temporal broadening through dispersive processing, enabling steganographic transmission. Simulation results at a bit rate of 100 Gb/s demonstrate significant security enhancement with high stability and reliability. Overall, the proposed scheme provides an effective approach to enhancing physical-layer security in high-order modulation optical transmission systems.