Note: Fully integrated 3.2 Gbps quantum random number generator with real-time extraction

• Published in: Review of scientific instruments Vol. 87; no. 7; p. 076102
• Main Authors: Zhang, Xiao-Guang, Nie, You-Qi, Zhou, Hongyi, Liang, Hao, Ma, Xiongfeng, Zhang, Jun, Pan, Jian-Wei
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Institute of Physics 01.07.2016
• Subjects: ALGORITHMS; COMPACTS; CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY; DATA ACQUISITION; EXTRACTION; FLUCTUATIONS; G CODES; High speed; INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY; INTERFEROMETERS; LASERS; MATRICES; Numbers; PIPELINES; Post-production processing; Random numbers; RANDOMNESS; Real time; REAL TIME SYSTEMS; Scientific apparatus & instruments; Variation; VELOCITY
• ISSN: 0034-6748; 1089-7623
• DOI: 10.1063/1.4958663

We present a real-time and fully integrated quantum random number generator (QRNG) by measuring laser phase fluctuations. The QRNG scheme based on laser phase fluctuations is featured for its capability of generating ultra-high-speed random numbers. However, the speed bottleneck of a practical QRNG lies on the limited speed of randomness extraction. To close the gap between the fast randomness generation and the slow post-processing, we propose a pipeline extraction algorithm based on Toeplitz matrix hashing and implement it in a high-speed field-programmable gate array. Further, all the QRNG components are integrated into a module, including a compact and actively stabilized interferometer, high-speed data acquisition, and real-time data post-processing and transmission. The final generation rate of the QRNG module with real-time extraction can reach 3.2 Gbps.