Ultrafast quantum random number generation based on quantum phase fluctuations

TL;DR

This paper presents an ultrafast quantum random number generator achieving over 6 Gb/s by exploiting quantum phase fluctuations of a laser near threshold, with rigorous randomness extraction and security considerations.

Contribution

It introduces a high-speed QRNG based on laser phase fluctuations, demonstrating experimental implementation and security analysis with information-theoretic randomness extraction.

Findings

Achieved over 6 Gb/s random number generation rate.

Successfully applied Trevisan's and Toeplitz-hashing extractors.

Proven the quantum origin and security of the generated randomness.

Abstract

A quantum random number generator (QRNG) can generate true randomness by exploiting the fundamental indeterminism of quantum mechanics. Most approaches to QRNG employ single-photon detection technologies and are limited in speed. Here, we propose and experimentally demonstrate an ultrafast QRNG at a rate over 6 Gb/s based on the quantum phase fluctuations of a laser operating near threshold. Moreover, we consider a potential adversary who has partial knowledge on the raw data and discuss how one can rigorously remove such partial knowledge with post-processing. We quantify the quantum randomness through min-entropy by modeling our system, and employ two extractors, Trevisan's extractor and Toeplitz-hashing, to distill the randomness, which is information-theoretically provable. The simplicity and high-speed of our experimental setup show the feasibility of a robust, low-cost, high-speed QRNG.