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Optica

Statistically stationary random light for high-security encryption

ShuQin Lin, Xinlei Zhu, Yijie Shen, Fei Wang, Xianfeng Chen, Greg Gbur, Yangjian Cai, Jiayi Yu

Published Jul 2, 2025• 17 citations
Publisher

Abstract

In the modern landscape of the internet, the secure storage and transmission of information are key objectives. Optical encryption is a long-standing method for improving information security; however, existing optical encryption strategies are unable to reliably recover encrypted information following free-space transmission. We propose an encryption protocol that utilizes the statistical features of random light fields to overcome the limitations of existing approaches. This protocol entails continuously refreshing the white complex noise to generate a colored complex noise set that carries encrypted information. Users can recover information by determining the spatial coherence structure of the ciphertext at the receiving end. Furthermore, the proposed protocol exhibits resilience against external noise attacks within the transmission channel, and the protocol’s unlimited key set makes it resistant to computer brute-force attacks. We hope that optical coherence engineering will extend the capabilities of existing optical encryption protocols, paving the way for future optical encryption technology.

DOI
10.1364/optica.546899

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In the modern landscape of the internet, the secure storage and transmission of information are key objectives. Optical encryption is a long-standing method for improving information security; however, existing optical encryption strategies are unable to reliably recover encrypted information following free-space transmission. We propose an encryption protocol that utilizes the statistical features of random light fields to overcome the limitations of existing approaches. This protocol entails continuously refreshing the white complex noise to generate a colored complex noise set that carries encrypted information. Users can recover information by determining the spatial coherence structure of the ciphertext at the receiving end. Furthermore, the proposed protocol exhibits resilience against external noise attacks within the transmission channel, and the protocol’s unlimited key set makes it resistant to computer brute-force attacks. We hope that optical coherence engineering will extend the capabilities of existing optical encryption protocols, paving the way for future optical encryption technology.
The rapid globalization of the digital ecosystem has elevated information security to a critical concern in modern society. Optical encryption offers an effective approach for enhancing information protection; however, existing optical encryption strategies are unable to reliably recover encrypted information following free-space transmission. To address this challenge, we propose a novel protocol named the optical coherence engineering encryption protocol (OCE-Encryption Protocol). By jointly manipulating the optical coherence structure and introducing astigmatic phase modulation, the protocol generates a spectral intensity ciphertext capable of secure free-space transmission. At the receiver, the original information can be accurately reconstructed by measuring the optical coherence structure of the received ciphertext and applying the correct decryption key. Furthermore, the proposed protocol demonstrates strong resilience to transmission channel disturbances. We hope that optical coherence engineering can expand the functional boundaries of existing optical encryption protocols and provide a pathway toward next-generation secure optical communication systems.
Abstract Optical encryption strategies utilizing fully coherent light have been widely explored but often face challenges such as speckle noise and beam instabilities. In this work, we introduce a novel protocol for multi-channel optical information encoding and encryption using vectorial spatial coherence engineering of a partially coherent light beam. By characterizing the beam’s spatial coherence structure with a 2×22 \times 22×2 2 × 2 coherence matrix, we demonstrate independent control over the three components of the coherence Stokes vector. This allows for three-channel optical information encoding and encryption, with applications in color image representation. Unlike existing methods based on fully coherent light modulations, our approach utilizes a two-point dependent coherence Stokes vector, proving resilient to random noise in experimental scenarios. Our findings provide a robust foundation for higher-dimensional optical encoding and encryption, addressing limitations associated with partially coherent light in complex environments.
The ability to engineer the spatial wavefunction of photons has enabled a variety of quantum protocols for communication, sensing, and information processing. These protocols exploit the high dimensionality of structured light enabling the encodinng of multiple bits of information in a single photon, the measurement of small physical parameters, and the achievement of unprecedented levels of security in schemes for cryptography. Unfortunately, the potential of structured light has been restrained to free-space platforms in which the spatial profile of photons is preserved. Here, we make an important step forward to using structured light for fiber optical communication. We introduce a smart high-dimensional encryption protocol in which the propagation of spatial modes in multimode fibers is used as a natural mechanism for encryption. This provides a secure communication channel for data transmission. The information encoded in spatial modes is retrieved using artificial neural networks, which are trained from the intensity distributions of experimentally detected spatial modes. Our on-fiber communication platform allows us to use spatial modes of light for high-dimensional bit-by-bit and byte-by-byte encoding. This protocol enables one to recover messages and images with almost perfect accuracy. Our smart protocol for high-dimensional optical encryption in optical fibers has key implications for quantum technologies relying on structured fields of light, particularly those that are challenged by free-space propagation.
Abstract The ability to engineer the spatial wavefunction of photons has enabled a variety of quantum protocols for communication, sensing, and information processing. These protocols exploit the high dimensionality of structured light enabling the encoding of multiple bits of information in a single photon, the measurement of small physical parameters, and the achievement of unprecedented levels of security in schemes for cryptography. Unfortunately, the potential of structured light has been restrained to free-space platforms in which the spatial profile of photons is preserved. Here, we make an important step forward to using structured light for fiber optical communication. We introduce a classical encryption protocol in which the propagation of high-dimensional spatial modes in multimode fibers is used as a natural mechanism for encryption. This provides a secure communication channel for data transmission. The information encoded in spatial modes is retrieved using artificial neural networks, which are trained from the intensity distributions of experimentally detected spatial modes. Our on-fiber communication platform allows us to use single spatial modes for information encoding as well as the high-dimensional superposition modes for bit-by-bit and byte-by-byte encoding respectively. This protocol enables one to recover messages and images with almost perfect accuracy. Our classical smart protocol for high-dimensional encryption in optical fibers provides a platform that can be adapted to address increased per-photon information capacity at the quantum level, while maintaining the fidelity of information transfer. This is key for quantum technologies relying on structured fields of light, particularly those that are challenged by free-space propagation.
Although one-time pad encrypted files can be sent through Internet channels, the need for renewing shared secret keys have made this method unpractical. This work presents a scheme to turn practical the fast sharing of random keys over arbitrary Internet channels. Starting with a shared secret key sequence of length K_0 the users end up with a secure new sequence K >> K_0. Using these sequences for posteriori message encryption the legitimate users have absolute security control without the need for third parties. Additionally, the security level does not depend on the unproven difficulty of factoring numbers in primes. In the proposed scheme a fast optical random source generates random bits and noise for key renewals. The transmitted signals are recorded signals that carries both the random binary signals to be exchanged and physical noise that cannot be eliminated by the attacker. These signals allow amplification over the Internet network without degrading security. The proposed system is also secure against a-posteriori known-plaintext attack on the key. Information-theoretic analysis is presented and bounds for secure operation are quantitatively determined.
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.