Quantum random number generator design and implementation

Randomness occurs in every kind of application in which random events should be experienced such as gambling, statistical calculations, computer simulations, information security and encryption. The quality of randomness is very important for the events using randomness. In particular, the need for random numbers used in the field of cryptology to be unpredictable increases the importance of random number generators. Random Number Generators (RNGs) are software or hardware components that can be used to generate numbers that cannot be predicted in any pattern or relationship. Software-based RNGs are deterministic applications, while hardware-based RNGs are the devices that can be integrated into the system. Encryption using numbers generated by software-based RNG can be broken in varying times depending on the strength of the encryption because it was developed in deterministic ways. It is expected that the decoding time will be shortened considerably by the quantum computers which are tried to be developed today besides classic computers that takes a long time to analyze. The hardware RNGs are more powerful in randomness quality than software-based generators, but cost-effective and use-limited generators. Quantum Random Number Generators (QRNGs) is a kind of generator based on quantum physics laws instead of classical physics. In photonic based QRNGs are produced the random numbers after various software and hardware operations by taking advantage of the uncertainty of photons. These generated numbers are unpredictably strong random numbers. In this study, a QRNG was obtained by using the RGB (Red-Green-Blue) values of the images taken from a white-single LED light source and the randomness tests of the produced numbers were carried out with the tests provided by NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology). As a result, the numbers derived from the images successfully passed NIST tests and true random number sequences were obtained.