Security-enhanced phase encryption assisted by nonlinear optical correlation via sparse phase

We propose a method for security-enhanced phase encryption assisted by a nonlinear optical correlation via a sparse phase. Optical configurations are established based on a phase retrieval algorithm for embedding an input image and the secret data into phase-only masks. We found that when one or a few phase-only masks generated during data hiding are sparse, it is possible to integrate these sparse masks into those phase-only masks generated during the encoding of the input image. Synthesized phase-only masks are used for the recovery, and sparse distributions (i.e., binary maps) for generating the incomplete phase-only masks are considered as additional parameters for the recovery of secret data. It is difficult for unauthorized receivers to know that a useful phase has been sparsely distributed in the finally generated phase-only masks for secret-data recovery. Only when the secret data are correctly verified can the input image obtained with valid keys be claimed as targeted information.