Minimalist design of a robust real-time quantum random number generator

• Main Authors: Kravtsov, K. S, Radchenko, I. V, Kulik, S. P, Molotkov, S. N
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 08-07-2015
• Subjects: Physics - Quantum Physics
• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.1507.02059

We present a simple and robust construction of a real-time quantum random
number generator (QRNG). Our minimalist approach ensures stable operation of
the device as well as its simple and straightforward hardware implementation as
a stand-alone module. As a source of randomness the device uses measurements of
time intervals between clicks of a single-photon detector. The obtained raw
sequence is then filtered and processed by a deterministic randomness
extractor, which is realized as a look-up table. This enables high speed
on-the-fly processing without the need of extensive computations. The overall
performance of the device is around 1 random bit per detector click, resulting
in 1.2 Mbit/s generation rate in our implementation.