Entropy evaluation of white chaos generated by optical heterodyne for certifying physical random number generators

The entropy of white chaos is evaluated to certify physical random number generators. White chaos is generated from the electric subtraction of two optical heterodyne signals of two chaotic outputs in semiconductor lasers with optical feedback. We use the statistical test suites of NIST Special Publication 800-90B for the evaluation of physical entropy sources of white chaos with an eight-bit resolution. The minimum value of entropy is 2.1 for eight most significant bits data. The entropy of white chaos is enhanced from that of the chaotic output of the semiconductor lasers. We evaluate the effect of detection noise and distinguish between the entropy that originates from the white chaos and the detection noise. It is found that the entropy of five most significant bits originates from white chaos. The minimum value of entropy is 1.1 for five most significant bits data, and it is considered that the entropy can be obtained at at least one bit per sample. (C) 2020 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement