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Quantum Computing, Communication, and Simulation

Comparison of high speed quantum random number generators based on ASE-ASE and ASE-LASER beating

Shreyam Maity, Asish Prosad, Harinee Natarajan, Varun Raghunathan

Published Mar 8, 2023• 6 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We report two Quantum Random Number Generator (QRNG) schemes based on Amplified Spontaneous Emission (ASE) to address the problems of previous ASE based QRNGs – (1) costlier and commercially difficult-to-get components, (2) higher electrical noise in the faster detectors. Our ASE-ASE-beating based QRNG, built using commercially available components, clocks in 7.437Gbps random number generation rate. Our second QRNG scheme based on the beating of LASER and ASE of similar power generates random bits at a speed of 7.80Gbps. The minimum entropy values for these schemes are 5.21 and 5.4990 respectively for an 8-bit ADC. The second scheme reports higher entropy because its random numbers has a higher variance than first one. We use the Toeplitz extractor on the raw bits to generate unbiased random numbers and verify them with the help of industry-standard statistical tests.

DOI
10.1117/12.2649916

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quant-pharXiv:2604.00741•International Conference on Optical and Wireless Technologies (OWT)•Apr 2, 2026•0 citations
We report two Quantum Random Number Generator (QRNG) schemes based on Amplified Spontaneous Emission (ASE) to address the problems of previous ASE based QRNGs – (1) costlier and commercially difficult-to-get components, (2) higher electrical noise in the faster detectors. Our ASE-ASE-beating based QRNG, built using commercially available components, clocks in 7.437Gbps random number generation rate. Our second QRNG scheme based on the beating of LASER and ASE of similar power generates random bits at a speed of 7.80Gbps. The minimum entropy values for these schemes are 5.21 and 5.4990 respectively for an 8-bit ADC. The second scheme reports higher entropy because its random numbers has a higher variance than first one. We use the Toeplitz extractor on the raw bits to generate unbiased random numbers and verify them with the help of industry-standard statistical tests.
Quantum random number generators (QRNG) based on amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) are known to achieve multi-gigabit-per-second rates through high-speed sampling of intensity and phase fluctuations. Two popular implementations of these QRNGs are based on balanced detection of ASEASE and ASE-Laser beating. The high QRNG rates reported so far however come at the price of increased system complexity, making it a clear deterrent for widespread use. In this paper, we perform a direct one-to-one comparison study between ASEASE and ASE-Laser-based QRNGs using detailed theoretical modeling and supporting experiments, with the goal of achieving 1 Gbps QRNG using simple, low-bandwidth photodetectors and low sampling rate digitizers. We develop, for the first time to the best of out knowledge, closed-form analytical expressions to describe the signal variance as a function of realistic, nonideal fiber-optic optical components, the signal correlations as a function of digitizer sampling rate, and minimum entropy as a function of signal variance. We observe a trade-off between the correlations in the detected signals and the sampling rate used, thereby obtaining an optimum sampling rate and hence the digitizer specification for extracting the best randomness. We also observe the standard deviation in the signal distribution is higher for ASE-Laser QRNG in comparison to the ASE-ASE implementation. Using off-the-shelf telecom fiber components, balanced detectors with bandwidth as low as 100 MHz, and an 8-bit digitizer operating at a sampling rate of 100 Megasamplesper-second (MSPS), we achieve QRNG rates of 546.03 Mbps and 507.94 Mbps for the ASE-ASE and ASE-Laser beating implementations respectively. The ASE-ASE QRNG rates are subsequently doubled to more than 1 Gbps using polarization multiplexing and bit-interleaving.
By measuring the amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) noise of the superluminescent light emitting diodes, we propose and realize a quantum random number generator (QRNG) featured with practicability. In the QRNG, after the detection and amplification of the ASE noise, the data acquisition and randomness extraction which is integrated in a field programmable gate array (FPGA) are both implemented in real-time, and the final random bit sequences are delivered to a host computer with a real-time generation rate of 1.2 Gbps. Further, to achieve compactness, all the components of the QRNG are integrated on three independent printed circuit boards with a compact design, and the QRNG is packed in a small enclosure sized 140 mm × 120 mm × 25 mm. The final random bit sequences can pass all the NIST-STS and DIEHARD tests.
Abstract The amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) noise has been extensively studied and employed to build quantum random number generators (QRNGs). While the previous relative works mainly focus on the realization and verification of the QRNG system, the comprehensive physical model and randomness quantification for the general detection of the ASE noise are still incomplete, which is essential for the quantitative security analysis. In this paper, a systematical physical model for the detection and acquisition of the ASE noise with added electronic noise is developed and verified, based on which the numerical simulations are performed under various setups and the simulation results all significantly fit well with the corresponding experimental data. Then, a randomness quantification method and the corresponding experimentally verifiable approach are proposed and validated, which quantifies the randomness purely resulted from the quantum process and improves the security analysis for the QRNG based on the detection of the ASE noise. The physical model and the randomness quantification method proposed in this paper are of significant feasibility and applicable for the QRNG system with randomness originating from the detection of the photon number with arbitrary distributions.
Abstract Quantum random number generators give the opportunity to, in theory, obtain completely unpredictable numbers only perturbed by the noise in the measurement. The obtained data can be digitalized and processed so that it gives as a result a uniform sequence of binary random numbers without any relation with the classical noise in the system. In this work we analyze the performance of optical QRNGs with three different arrangements: a homodyne detector measuring vacuum fluctuations, a homodyne detector measuring amplified spontaneous emission from an EDFA and a spontaneous emission phase noise-based generator. The raw data from the experiments is processed using a Toeplitz extractor, giving as a result sequences of binary numbers capable of passing the NIST Statistical Test Suite.
We report the sampling rate dependency of a single-bit quantum random number generation scheme using a filtered and amplified source of amplified spontaneous emission (ASE). The quality of randomness is measured by the number of passed NIST statistical randomness tests. The number decreases for almost all cases when increasing the sampling rate. We apply a simple self-delay XOR post-processing technique, drastically improving the quality for low sampling rates. However, sampling rates higher than the analog bandwidth of the sampled intensity fluctuations are found to be ineligible for the generation scheme.
Random Number Generators (RNGs) are crucial for applications ranging from cryptography to simulations. Depending on the source of randomness, RNGs are classified into Pseudo-Random Number Generators (PRNGs), True Random Number Generators (TRNGs), and Quantum Random Number Generators (QRNGs). This work presents the end-to-end development of a high-speed, high-efficiency, phase-noise-based QRNG system that taps into the quantum phase noise of a single-frequency laser, with randomness originating from spontaneous emission. Using a self-heterodyne measurement with a semiconductor laser (linewidth ≈\approx≈ 5.23 GHzGHzGHz) operated near threshold and a $\sim$48 cmcmcm fiber delay line, a raw data generation rate of 2.0 GbpsGbpsGbps is achieved. To ensure uniform randomness in the QRNG output, robust extraction techniques developed in-house, such as the Toeplitz Strong Extractor (TSE), are used. Randomness validation using the NIST and Diehard test suites confirms that all statistical tests pass at standard confidence levels. The developed system achieves a post-processed generation rate of 1.0 GbpsGbpsGbps in operation and attains a Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of 7, approaching TRL 8, making it suitable for real-time secure applications such as cryptographic key generation and stochastic modeling.