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Photonic Network Communications

Impact of physical layer attacks on phase-encrypted optical signals in coherent communication systems

Keiji Shimada, Takahiro Kodama

Published Dec 5, 2025• 0 citations
Publisher
DOI
10.1007/s11107-025-01038-7

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Data security plays an increasingly important role in modern telecommunications. The advent of quantum computational processors presents a significant threat to today's widely employed public key encryption algorithms, necessitating the adoption of new approaches to data encryption. Whilst quantum key distribution guarantees unconditional security for cryptographic key exchange in optical communication networks, the data rate is slow (Mbit/s), especially when compared to conventional optical communication. Here we present a highly secure encryption approach in which the encryption key, generated by quantum key distribution at a rate of up to 2.9 Mbit/s, was used to seed physical layer encryption performed using time domain spectral phase encoding (TDSPE). This allowed us to demonstrate encrypted 40 Gbit/s quadrature phase shift keyed data communications over 52.3 km of installed optical fiber, which cannot be eavesdropped using brute force computational attacks. Any attempt to eavesdrop the encrypted signal in the physical layer is highly time-sensitive – the phase states must be measured and decrypted prior to optical signal attenuation, which means that the attack procedure typically needs to be completed within a few milliseconds. This work represents the first example of quantum-enhanced physical layer encryption at realistic optical data rates that is fully secure from brute force computational attacks and the first demonstration of TDSPE using continuous-wave laser source and quadrature phase shift key modulation.
Abstract In this paper, a novel secure communication scheme based on temporal spreading and dual-phase perturbation is proposed to improve security at the physical layer. For one thing, the traditional electro-optical feedback phase encryption system is significantly sophisticated by the introduction of additional synchronized chaotic phase encryption. Besides, more keys in this system are available, with the attendance of dispersion and optical chaos, the key space is notably enhanced to ∼2 36 , resisting the eavesdropping attacks. After passing through a series of encryption devices, the information is ultimately displayed as a noise-like signal. A 32 Gb s −1 on-off keying signal is successfully transmitted over a 100 km standard single-mode fiber. Simulation results show that by selecting the appropriate system parameters, a bit error rate as low as 10 −10 can be obtained for legitimate terminals, and the effect of different hardware parameter mismatches on the decryption performance is also investigated which indicates a certain tolerance range for the mismatch of each parameter. This paper provides a new idea to combine an electro-optical feedback system with optical chaos to establish optical secrecy communication.