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IEEE photonics journal

Comparative Study of ASE-ASE and ASE-Laser Based Quantum Random Number Generators

Shreyam Maity, Asish Prosad, Harinee Natarajan, V. Balaswamy, Varun Raghunathan

Published Mar 5, 2024• 2 citations
Publisher

Abstract

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.

DOI
10.1109/jphot.2024.3373644

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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.
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.
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.
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.
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Quantum random number generators (QRNGs) can produce true random numbers. Yet, the two most important QRNG parameters highly desired for practical applications, i.e., speed and size, have to be compromised during implementations. Here, we present the fastest and miniaturized QRNG with a record real-time output rate as high as 18.8 Gbps by combining a photonic integrated chip and the technology of optimized randomness extraction. We assemble the photonic integrated circuit designed for vacuum state QRNG implementation, an InGaAs homodyne detector, and a high-bandwidth transimpedance amplifier into a single chip using hybrid packaging, which exhibits the excellent characteristics of integration and high-frequency response. With a sample rate of 2.5 GSa/s in a 10-bit analog-to-digital converter and subsequent paralleled postprocessing in a field programmable gate array, the QRNG outputs ultrafast random bitstreams via a fiber optic transceiver, whose real-time speed is validated in a personal computer.