Fast random number generator based on optical physical unclonable functions

TL;DR

This paper introduces a rapid optical PUF-based random number generator that leverages speckle patterns and simple post-processing to achieve near 1 Gbit/s speed, surpassing previous optical methods.

Contribution

It presents a novel optical PUF-based RNG with a simple post-processing algorithm, achieving significantly higher speeds than prior optical PUF schemes.

Findings

Achieved 0.96 Gbit/s random number generation rate.

Verified the randomness of generated numbers.

Demonstrated potential for hundreds of Gbit/s speeds.

Abstract

We propose an approach for fast random number generation based on homemade optical physical unclonable functions (PUFs). The optical PUF is illuminated with input laser wavefront of continuous modulation to obtain different speckle patterns. Random numbers are fully extracted from speckle patterns through a simple post-processing algorithm. Our proof-of-principle experiment achieves total random number generation rate of 0.96 Gbit/s with verified randomness, which is far faster than previous optical-PUF-based schemes. Our results demonstrate that the presented random number generator (RNG) proposal has great potential to achieve ultrafast random number generation rate up to several hundreds of Gbit/s.