Fast Random Bit Generation in Optical Domain With Ultrawide Bandwidth Chaotic Laser

We propose a novel scheme of random bit generator which does signal processing in the optical domain. The output of an ultrawide bandwidth chaotic laser is sampled through an electrooptical modulator, then quantized by an all-optical flip-flop, and finally coded into random bit sequences. Simulation results show that 5-Gb/s random bits in the return-to-zero format and with a duty ratio of 1/2 can be generated, which can pass standard statistical tests for randomness after an exclusive-or operation.