Random bit generation through polarization chaos in nonlinear optical fibers

Morosi, Jacopo, Guasoni, Massimiliano, Akrout, Akram and Fatome, Julien (2017) Random bit generation through polarization chaos in nonlinear optical fibers. 2017 Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics Europe & European Quantum Electronics Conference (CLEO/Europe-EQEC), , Munich, Germany. 25 - 29 Jun 2017. 1 pp . (doi:10.1109/CLEOE-EQEC.2017.8086464).

Abstract

Nowadays, cryptographic applications are becoming of paramount importance in order to guarantee ultimately secure communications. Performances of classical and quantum key distribution and encryption algorithms are strongly dependent on the used Random Number Generator (RNG). A good RNG must produce unpredictable, unreproducible and unbiased sequences of numbers. For this reason, many true random number generators relying on chaotic physical phenomena, such as chaotic oscillations of high-bandwidth lasers [1,2] or polarization chaos from a VCSEL diode [3], have been developed. In this work, we propose a RNG implementation based on a different physical mechanism than the ones previously used in literature: the polarization chaos induced in an optical fiber by the nonlinear interaction between a forward beam and its amplified backward replica. Basically, we operate the device called Omnipolarizer, originally used in our previous works as an all-optical polarization attractor or beam splitter [4], in an additional operating mode, namely the chaotic mode [5].

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