Secret key exchange in ultra-long lasers by radio-frequency spectrum coding

Alessandro Tonello; Alain Barthélémy; Katarzyna Krupa; Vincent Kermène; Agnès Desfarges-Berthelemot; Badr Mohamed Shalaby; Sonia Boscolo; Sergei K. Turitsyn; Juan Diego Ania-Castañón

doi:10.1038/lsa.2015.49

Secret key exchange in ultra-long lasers by radio-frequency spectrum coding

Alessandro Tonello, Alain Barthélémy, Katarzyna Krupa, Vincent Kermène, Agnès Desfarges-Berthelemot, Badr Mohamed Shalaby, Sonia Boscolo, Sergei K. Turitsyn, Juan Diego Ania-Castañón

Aston Institute of Photonic Technologies (AiPT)

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

We propose a new approach to the generation of an alphabet for secret key exchange relying on small variations in the cavity length of an ultra-long fiber laser. This new concept is supported by experimental results showing how the radio-frequency spectrum of the laser can be exploited as a carrier to exchange information. The test bench for our proof of principle is a 50 km-long fiber laser linking two users, Alice and Bob, where each user can randomly add an extra 1 km-long segment of fiber. The choice of laser length is driven by two independent random binary values, which makes such length become itself a random variable. The security of key exchange is ensured whenever the two independent random choices lead to the same laser length and, hence, to the same free spectral range.

Original language	English
Article number	e276
Number of pages	5
Journal	Light
Volume	4
Issue number	2
Early online date	27 Jan 2015
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/lsa.2015.49
Publication status	Published - 24 Apr 2015

Bibliographical note

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/.

Funding: French National Research Agency (grants LABEX SIGMALIM and ANR 08-JCJC-0122 PARADHOQS); European Research Council (project ULTRALASER); Leverhulme Trust (grant RPG-278); Spanish MICINN project TEC2011-27314 (RAMAS); and XLIM Institute (grant VIP2013).

Keywords

fiber lasers
fiber optics communications
optical security
encryption

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10.1038/lsa.2015.49Licence: CC BY 3.0

Secret key exchange in ultra-long lasers
CC BY 3.0. © 2014 Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics (CIOMP), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).
Final published version, 1.25 MBLicence: CC BY 3.0

Cite this

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abstract = "We propose a new approach to the generation of an alphabet for secret key exchange relying on small variations in the cavity length of an ultra-long fiber laser. This new concept is supported by experimental results showing how the radio-frequency spectrum of the laser can be exploited as a carrier to exchange information. The test bench for our proof of principle is a 50 km-long fiber laser linking two users, Alice and Bob, where each user can randomly add an extra 1 km-long segment of fiber. The choice of laser length is driven by two independent random binary values, which makes such length become itself a random variable. The security of key exchange is ensured whenever the two independent random choices lead to the same laser length and, hence, to the same free spectral range.",

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AU - Turitsyn, Sergei K.

AU - Ania-Castañón, Juan Diego

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KW - optical security

KW - encryption

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Secret key exchange in ultra-long lasers by radio-frequency spectrum coding

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