Long term experimental verification of a single chip quantum random number generator fabricated on the InP platform

Abstract

This work presents the results from the experimental evaluation of a quantum random number generator circuit over a period of 300 minutes based on a single chip fabricated on the InP platform. The circuit layout contains a gain switched laser diode (LD), followed by a balanced Mach Zehnder Interferometer for proper light power distribution to the two arms of an unbalanced MZI incorporating a 65.4 mm long spiral waveguide that translates the random phase fluctuations to power variations. The LD was gain-switched at 1.3 GHz and the chip delivered a min-entropy of 0.5875 per bit after removal of the classical noise, resulting a total aggregate bit rate of 6.11 Gbps. The recoded data set successfully passed the 15-battery test NIST statistical test suite for all data sets.