AUTHOR=Xiao Jin-Long , Xiao Zhi-Xiong , Ma Chun-Guang , Hao You-Zeng , Li Ya-Li , Yang Yue-De , Huang Yong-Zhen 

TITLE=Self-chaotic microlasers for random bit generation

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Photonics

VOLUME=Volume 4 - 2023

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/photonics/articles/10.3389/fphot.2023.1138125

DOI=10.3389/fphot.2023.1138125

ISSN=2673-6853

ABSTRACT=Semiconductor lasers subject to optical feedback can produce plentiful nonlinear dynamics, including periodic and chaotic oscillations, which are usually applied to microwave signals and physical random number generation, respectively. Chaotic semiconductor lasers are especially successful in generating random numbers compared with pseudorandom numbers generated by a computing process. We report a self-chaotic microlaser based on the internal mode interaction of nearly degenerate modes. A special resonator is designed and demonstrated with adjusted mode intervals on the order of GHz for the fundamental and first-order transverse modes. These modes with strong mode beating result in chaos, and physical random bits are obtained from the laser output power at 10 Gb/s. Our proposals provide a novel solution to generate robust optical chaos for high-speed random number generation.