Quantum Random Number Generator for the Consumer Market

Operation co-funded by EU cohesion policy (European Regional Development Fund (ERDF)) under the programme Cataluña - ERDF (2014ES16RFOP011), managing authority: Subdirección General de Gestión del FEDER de la Dirección General de Fondos Europeos. Ministerio de Hacienda.. The source names no beneficiary for this operation. Location: Barcelona Province (NUTS ES511); Spain. Budget: total eligible expenditure EUR 20,000; EU co-financing EUR 10,000 (co-financing rate 50%), as stated by the source. Runs 2015-05-15 to 2015-12-11. Source: Kohesio, EU cohesion policy projects managed by national and regional authorities (not CORDIS). Summary from Kohesio (English machine translation by the source): During the realization of the project we will create a quantum random number generator (QRNG) with unprecedented performance, size and cost; an optoelectronic device that will have a great impact on information technologies and communications. Imagine how our lives could change if the quantum nature of light is used to protect our data unconditionally secure (banking transactions, storage of medical records, among others) directly from our smartphones. Random numbers are essential to encrypt and protect the transmission of data through the internet. The security of any cryptographic system can be severely affected by predicabilitats in the sequence of random numbers used. Current schemes, such as pseudo-RNGs based on algorithms or physical generators based on thermal and electronic noise (Intel), are vulnerable to attacks due to generation principles. On the contrary, through fundamental principles, quantum mechanics eliminates this limitation and guarantees rigorous randomness. We discovered that through the spontaneous emission of a laser diode working below its threshold level, a sequence of random phase optical pulses can be generated by the gain-switching technique. Therefore, by making the interference of consecutive pulses, the random phases are converted into random amplitudes that can be easily detected, and digitized. This technique has become a patent, which has materialized recently in the fastest quantum random number generation ever published (<40Gb / s). Currently we have developed a new version of our QRNG by introducing a second laser to the system to carry out the interference process. The new scheme is particularly interesting to be implemented using integrated photonic circuits (PICs), and also allows operation at any speed, making the scheme very attractive for the consumer market.

Original source.

Source: Kohesio (EU cohesion policy projects), European Commission, Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy (DG REGIO). Retrieved 2026-10-21. Licence: CC0 1.0 (Cohesion Open Data Platform, dataset 2014-2020 Kohesio projects). Selected metadata, adapted presentation; the publisher's record is authoritative. No endorsement by the source is implied. Licence: public domain dedication (CC0 1.0).

AI-assisted summary: The project, co-funded by the EU's ERDF, aimed to develop a quantum random number generator (QRNG) in Barcelona Province, Spain, with a budget of EUR 20,000. It ran from May 15, 2015, to December 11, 2015, and focused on enhancing information technology security. Suggested technology pillar: communication. Generated by AI from the public source text; it may contain errors and the original source is authoritative.