High-Speed Physical Random Bit Generation Based on Broadband Random Optoelectronic Oscillator

A new approach for high-speed physical random bit generation (RBG) based on broadband random optoelectronic oscillator (OEO) is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. In this scheme, a broadband random OEO based on Rayleigh scattering (RS) is employed as the entropy source of RBG. Compared with other broadband random OEOs which require an additional pump source, the optical signal output from the laser in the proposed scheme can realize excited Brillouin scattering as well as acting as an optical carrier. Benefiting from the introduction of randomly distributed feedback by RS, which breaks the limitation of the fixed loop length of the conventional chaotic OEO, the signals generated by the proposed broadband random OEO have random characteristics. Meanwhile, the generated signals exhibit wide and flat frequency spectrum characteristics due to the avoidance of semiconductor chaotic laser relaxation oscillations. The experimental results show the proposed RBG technique can generate physical random bits with a rate of up to 500 Gb/s which can fully pass the NIST test.