Experimental demonstration of an 8-Gbit/s free-space secure optical communication link using all-optical chaos modulation

• Published in: Optics letters Vol. 48; no. 6; p. 1470
• Main Authors: Zhang, Yiqun, Xu, Mingfeng, Pu, Mingbo, Chen, Qiang, Zhou, Mengjie, Chen, Shuangcheng, Qiu, Kun, Jiang, Ning, Luo, Xiangang
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 15.03.2023
• ISSN: 1539-4794
• DOI: 10.1364/OL.483353

For the first time, to the best of our knowledge, we experimentally demonstrate a high-speed free-space secure optical communication system based on all-optical chaos modulation. The effect of atmospheric turbulence on optical chaos synchronization is experimentally investigated via a hot air convection atmospheric turbulence simulator. It is shown that, even under moderately strong turbulent conditions, high-quality chaos synchronization could be obtained by increasing the transmission power. Moreover, a secure encryption transmission experiment using a high bias current induced chaotic carrier for 8-Gbit/s on-off-keying data over a ∼10-m free-space optical link is successfully demonstrated, with a bit-error rate below the FEC threshold of 3.8 × 10 . This work favorably shows the feasibility of optical chaotic encryption for the free-space optical transmission system.