Gambling with superconducting fluctuations

TL;DR

This paper explores the use of stochastic switching in superconducting nanowires and Josephson junctions as a method for generating high-quality random numbers, supported by experimental validation.

Contribution

It introduces a novel protocol leveraging superconducting fluctuations for random number generation and tests its effectiveness experimentally.

Findings

Successfully generated random numbers with high fidelity

Validated the stochastic switching as a reliable randomness source

Demonstrated potential for practical applications in secure communications

Abstract

Superconducting nanowires and Josephson junctions, when biased close to superconducting critical current, can switch to a non-zero voltage state by thermal or quantum fluctuations. The process is understood as an escape of a Brownian particle from a metastable state. Since this effect is fully stochastic, we propose to use it for generating random numbers. We present protocol for obtaining random numbers and test the experimentally harvested data for their fidelity.