A Quantum Photonic TRNG based on Quaternary Logic

An architecture for a quantum photonic true random number generator (TRNG) that takes advantage of higher-radix encoding schemes is presented. The TRNG is based upon two statistically independent sources of entropy: generated photon sequences at randomly distributed time intervals and the measurement of radix-4 superimposed quantum states. The two-source TRNG comprises of recently developed structures and extractor functions that enable it to be implemented in a quantum photonic integrated circuit (QPIC). We show that the amount of entropy extracted from the dual weakly random sources exceeds the amount of entropy that can be extracted from either of the single physical sources. We also describe several features of the TRNG architecture that enhance the data output rates.