Abstract Optical encryption is an emerging technique that uses optical systems to securely encode and decode information for data transmission. In this study, we present an integrated optical encryption platform that consists of a scattering-augmented ptychographic encryption system, a transmission-efficient compressive sampling strategy, and a high-capacity decryption algorithm based on a hybrid model-data driven approach. Our encryption system leverages random light scattering as a physical unclonable function, enabling the encoding of complex object wavefronts with high optical throughput. In contrast to traditional encoders that offer insecure pseudo-randomness, the light scattering process ensures true randomness in the reported platform. To optimize transmission efficiency, we implement a compressive sampling strategy that reduces data transmission volume by at least one order of magnitude. Moreover, we devise a decryption algorithm that merges model-driven optimization with data-driven deep learning, effectively addressing the highly underdetermined retrieval task and providing robust decryption against various measurement noise and communication interference. The efficacy of our system is corroborated by an integrated optical prototype capable of encrypting ten million of pixels within minutes. Communication experiments confirm the resilience of our decryption algorithm, which retrieves high-fidelity results even under extreme transmission conditions characterized by a 20% bit error rate. Our innovative encryption technique presents a comprehensive solution for high-capacity data transmission, fortified by scattering-augmented security.
Abstract Optical encryption is an emerging technique that uses optical systems to securely encode and decode information for data transmission. In this study, we present an integrated optical encryption platform that consists of a scattering-augmented ptychographic encryption system, a transmission-efficient compressive sampling strategy, and a high-capacity decryption algorithm based on a hybrid model-data driven approach. Our encryption system leverages random light scattering as a physical unclonable function, enabling the encoding of complex object wavefronts with high optical throughput. In contrast to traditional encoders that offer insecure pseudo-randomness, the light scattering process ensures true randomness in the reported platform. To optimize transmission efficiency, we implement a compressive sampling strategy that reduces data transmission volume by at least one order of magnitude. Moreover, we devise a decryption algorithm that merges model-driven optimization with data-driven deep learning, effectively addressing the highly underdetermined retrieval task and providing robust decryption against various measurement noise and communication interference. The efficacy of our system is corroborated by an integrated optical prototype capable of encrypting ten million of pixels within minutes. Communication experiments confirm the resilience of our decryption algorithm, which retrieves high-fidelity results even under extreme transmission conditions characterized by a 20% bit error rate. Our innovative encryption technique presents a comprehensive solution for high-capacity data transmission, fortified by scattering-augmented security.
Data proliferation in the digital age necessitates robust encryption techniques to protect information privacy. Optical encryption leverages the multiple degrees of freedom inherent in light waves to encode information with parallel processing and enhanced security features. However, implementations of large-scale, high-security optical encryption have largely remained theoretical or limited to digital simulations due to hardware constraints, signal-to-noise ratio challenges, and precision fabrication of encoding elements. Here, we present an optical encryption platform utilizing scattering multiplexing ptychography, simultaneously enhancing security and throughput. Unlike optical encoders which rely on computer-generated randomness, our approach leverages the inherent complexity of light scattering as a natural unclonable function. This enables multi-dimensional encoding with superior randomness. Furthermore, the ptychographic configuration expands encryption throughput beyond hardware limitations through spatial multiplexing of different scatterer regions. We propose a hybrid decryption algorithm integrating model- and data-driven strategies, ensuring robust decryption against various sources of measurement noise and communication interference. We achieved optical encryption at a scale of ten-megapixel pixels with 1.23 µm resolution. Communication experiments validate the resilience of our decryption algorithm, yielding high-fidelity results even under extreme transmission conditions characterized by a 20% bit error rate. Our encryption platform offers a holistic solution for large-scale, high-security, and cost-effective cryptography.
Incoherent optical cryptosystem is promising for its immunity against coherent noise and insensitivity to misalignment, and compressive encryption is desirable considering the increasingly demand on the exchange of encrypted data via Internet. In this paper, we propose a novel optical compressive encryption approach with spatially incoherent illumination based on deep learning (DL) and space multiplexing. For encryption, the plaintexts are individually sent to the scattering-imaging-based encryption (SIBE) scheme where they are transformed to scattering images with noise appearances. Afterwards, these images are randomly sampled and then integrated into a single package (i.e., ciphertext) by space multiplexing. The decryption is basically the inverse of the encryption, while it involves an ill-posed problem (i.e., recovering the noise-like scattering image from its randomly sampled version). We demonstrated that such a problem can be well resolved by DL. The proposal is radically free from the cross-talk noise existing in many current multiple-image encryption schemes. Also, it gets rid of the linearity bothering the SIBE and is hence robust against the ciphertext-only attack based on phase retrieval algorithm. We present a series of experimental results to confirm the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposal.
Optical encryption inherently provides strong security advantages, with hybrid optoelectronic systems offering additional degrees of freedom by integrating optical and algorithmic domains. However, existing optical encryption schemes heavily rely on electronic computation, limiting overall efficiency, and the physical keys are susceptible to damage, compromising both security and system stability. To overcome these challenges, we introduce the quasi-periodic optical key (Q-POK), which combines long-range order with short-range disorder, enabling enhanced security and robustness against damage within a single platform. By leveraging diffraction symmetry, our design enables optics-driven encryption, effectively shifting the optoelectronic balance toward photonic processing. Moreover, we innovatively apply deep learning to reconstruct the complex optical ciphertext field using only amplitude data and cryptographic keys, simultaneously achieving data compression and improved security. Within this framework, the key space includes continuously tunable parameters such as wavelength, propagation distance, phase modulation, and Q-POK geometry, significantly expanding cryptographic diversity. Our system also demonstrates robust cryptographic reliability by reducing inter-class distances by over 50% and tolerating up to 20% ciphertext loss. Our framework represents a generation of physically grounded, algorithmically enhanced optical cryptosystems—laying a foundational pathway for scalable, hardware-integrated information security paradigms.
As we enter the big data and artificial intelligence (AI) era, integrating security and communication over optical fiber has become a critical challenge. This urgency is driven by the need to protect vast amounts of sensitive data, ensuring privacy security across global high-capacity optical networks. Traditional secure communication methods often struggle to maintain high-capacity transmission performance while providing robust security. Here we propose an integrated encryption and communication (IEAC) framework, designed to maximize mutual information (MI) for legal users while minimizing it for potential eavesdroppers. Enabled by end-to-end deep learning, this holistic framework trains a random number-selected geometric constellation shaping scheme to optimize encryption processes and transmission quality simultaneously. The IEAC experiment system achieves a groundbreaking single-channel transmission rate of 1 Terabit per second (Tb/s) over a 1200-km fiber link, employing a 26-channel, 3.9 THz bandwidth, full C-band wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) configuration. The MI for eavesdroppers is under 0.2 bit per symbol where the regular value is near 4.0, ensuring secure transmission. The IEAC scheme offers a scalable, promising solution to meet the escalating demand for high-throughput, secure data transmission in the face of advancing big data and AI computational technologies.
Optical encryption inherently provides strong security advantages, with hybrid optoelectronic systems offering additional degrees of freedom by integrating optical and algorithmic domains. However, existing optical encryption schemes heavily rely on electronic computation, limiting overall efficiency, while the physical keys are susceptible to damage, compromising both security and system stability. To overcome these challenges, we introduce the Quasi Periodic Optical Key (QPOK), which combines long range order with short range disorder, enabling enhanced security and robustness against damage within a single platform. By leveraging diffraction symmetry, our design enables optics-driven encryption, effectively shifting the optoelectronic balance toward photonic processing. Moreover, we innovatively apply deep learning to reconstruct the complex optical ciphertext field using only amplitude data and cryptographic keys, simultaneously achieving data compression and improved security. Within this framework, the key space includes continuously tunable parameters such as wavelength, propagation distance, phase modulation, and Q-POK geometry, significantly expanding cryptographic diversity. Our system also demonstrates robust cryptographic reliability by reducing inter-class distances by over 50% and tolerating up to 20% ciphertext loss. Our framework represents a new generation of physically grounded, algorithmically enhanced optical cryptosystems, laying a foundational pathway for scalable, hardware-integrated information security paradigms.
The growing awareness of the vulnerability of information transmitted on communication systems within the government, military and commercial sectors, has stimulated a number of areas of research within the optical community to design optical hardware encryption systems providing inherent immunity to espionage techniques. This paper describes a hardware optical encryption technique that utilises off the shelf telecommunication equipment and negates the necessity for an independent key distribution system with respect to the data transmission system, as is common with alternative encryption system implementations. This method also lends itself easily to fiber optic or free space communication and is applicable within any optical waveband. The encryption-decryption of the optical signal is achieved through low coherence optical interferometry. This requires the instantaneous processing and analysis of the signal, optically, to retrieve the relevant optical phase information hidden in the transmitted optical noise. This technology allows an authorised user to transmit encrypted information at a high data rate securely, while maintaining opaqueness to an unauthorised observer that data transmission is occurring. As the instantaneous optical field properties of the signals present in the system are essential to the optical encryption - decryption process, the system is inherently protected against electronic recording and advances in computational decryption algorithms. For organisations wishing to protect sensitive data and levels of communication activity these are highly desirable features.