CHIN. PHYS. LETT. Vol. 26, No.

7 (2009) 074219

An Encryption-Decryption Method Using XOR Gate Based on the XPM between

O-Band and C-Band Light Waves *
WANG Ya-Ping (王亚平)** , WU Chong-Qing(吴重庆)*** , WANG Zhi(王智), WANG Yong-Jun(王拥军),
YANG Shuang-Shou(杨双收), SHENG Xin-Zhi(盛新志)
Institute of Optical Information, Key Lab of Luminescence and Optical Information Technology (Ministry of
education), Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing 100044

(Received 16 February 2009)

An all-optical encryption-decryption method using an exclusive-or gate based on the cross-phase modulation
between O-band and C-band light waves is proposed. The feasibility of the encryption-decryption technique
is verified by handling binary signals at 2.5 Gbps, with less than 3 dB penalty of extinction ratio and 1 dB
polarization dependent loss.

PACS: 42. 79. Ta, 42. 79. Sz, 42. 79. −e

To ensure the security of high-speed optical
communication networks, the optical encryption-
decryption technique is of vital importance for devel-
oping practical processing of the optical packet data
stream.[1−3] Because the exclusive-or (XOR) gate has
been fully developed and the application has attracted
widespread attention,[4] the optical image encryption
based on the XOR operations was proposed in 1999.[5]
Optical XOR encryption using the polarization of liq-
uid crystal displays[6−8] has already been computed
by analogy. At present, the encryption-decryption
system using the XOR gate based on the cross-gain
modulation (XGM) which is featured by the SOA has
been demonstrated.[9] The system, however, is com-
plicated and requires precise synchronization of every
bit. Moreover, the amplified spontaneous emission
(ASE) noise accumulated from the cascaded SOAs
puts a limit to practical applications of the system.
In this Letter, we put forward an encryption-
decryption technique at 2.5 Gps which uses a cross-
phase modulation (XPM)-based XOR logic gate. The
encryption is realized by employing an XOR based
on an XPM between an O-band(1310 nm) and a C-
band (1550 nm) light wave, while the decryption is
realized through an XOR based on an XPM between
the light waves with different wavelengths at the C-
band. In order to decrease the requirement for syn-
chronization, the synchronized frame envelope is used
as a probe. This scheme has the advantages of sim-
plicity, low polarization dependent loss (PDL), frame
synchronization and stability. In addition, the signal-
to-noise ratio (SNR) of the encryption or decryption
remains high, because the 1310 nm SOA does not add
any in-band ASE noise to the 1550 nm probe, and the
ASE noise of the 1550 nm SOA is suppressed effec-
tively by introducing a continuous waveform (CW).
Figure 1 illustrates the schematic diagram of the
all-optical encryption-decryption system based on the
XOR gate. 𝑃 refers to plaintext, 𝐾 to key, and 𝐶 to
* Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant Nos 60672004 and 60877057, and the National
High-Tech Research and Development Program of China under Grant No 2007AA01Z270.
** Email: 05121783@bjtu.edu.cn
*** Email: cqwu@bjtu.edu.cn
○c 2009 Chinese Physical Society and IOP Publishing Ltd
ciphertext. The duration of the synchronized frame
envelope is indicated by 𝑇𝑝 , and the length of 𝑃 , 𝐾
and 𝐶 which are used as control pulses is indicated
by 𝑇𝑐 . As probe, the synchronized frame envelope
is injected into the loop from port 1 and is split into
clockwise and counterclockwise directions at the 50:50
coupler. As a nonlinear element, an SOA is placed at
the center of the loop, while the tunable fiber delay
line (DL) is used to introduce the desired displacement
of the SOA. Therefore, the two counter propagating
pulses arrive at the SOA with a time interval 𝑇 . In
order to realize the XOR gate, the three time scales
should be well controlled and carefully synchronized,
and the relation of 𝑇𝑐 < 𝑇𝑝 < 𝑇 should be satisfied.
As control pulses of both the clockwise and counter-
clockwise probe, the intensity-modulated signals are
introduced into the SOA via the WDM. The nonlin-
ear phase shift at 1550 nm in each amplifier segment
is modeled as[10]
1 𝜕𝑔
𝜓cw = (𝑧) = − Γ𝛼𝑁 (𝑁 (𝑧) − 𝑁𝑠𝑡 )∆𝑧, (1)
2 𝜕𝑁
where Γ is the optical intensity confinement factor, 𝑁
is the carrier density, 𝑁𝑠𝑡 is the steady-state value of
the carrier density, 𝛼𝑁 is the linewidth enhancement
factor, and ∆𝑧 is the length of each SOA sub-section.
After traversing the loop, the accumulated phase shift
of the clockwise and counterclockwise probes is ob-
tained as follows:
𝜓cw = 𝜓cw (𝑧 = 0) − 𝜓ccw (𝑧 = 𝑙) + 𝜓ring , (2)
𝜓ccw = 𝜓ccw (𝑧 = 𝑙) − 𝜓ccw (𝑧 = 0) + 𝜓ring . (3)
The counter propagating probes with the phase
modulation will recombine and interfere with each
other at the coupler. We obtain the output power
as follows:
1 (︀ √︀ )︀
𝑃out = 𝑃in 𝐺cw + 𝐺ccw − 2 𝐺cw 𝐺ccw cos ∆𝜓 , (4)
4

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 CHIN. PHYS. LETT. Vol. 26, No. 7 (2009) 074219

where 𝐺cw and 𝐺ccw refer respectively to the expe- 1.53 mW respectively, and with the 0.86 mW CW, the
rienced gains of the clockwise and counterclockwise control power at 1556.019 nm which brings 𝜋 to the
probes, while ∆Ψ = Ψcw − Ψccw to the nonlinear dif- nonlinear differential phase shift is 3.1 mW, 2.42 mW
ferential phase shift. According to Eq. (4), the phase and 1.68 mW, respectively.
modulation on the 1550 nm probe can be converted
into the intensity modulation. P 1310 nm K
1308.499 nm 1308.499 nm
Figure 1(a) shows the encryption. In the 1310 nm SOA
WDM WDM
SOA, the probe at 1550 nm will be only phase-
DL
modulated by the SOA’s carrier density because of
3 4
𝐺cw ≈ 𝐺ccw and will be out of the ASE spectrum Frame envelope C/P K
1556.019 nm 1 Coupler 2
of the 1310 nm SOA. In Eq. (4), when ∆Ψ = 𝜋 1556.019 nm
(a)
(𝑃 = 0, 𝐾 = 1 or 𝑃 = 1, 𝐾 = 0 with 𝑃 and 𝐾
being the light power, 1 and 0 being high power and C
1550 nm
K
.
1556.019 nm 1556.019 nm
zero power), the output power of port 2 will achieve SOA
CW
WDM WDM
its maximum, and when ∆Ψ = 0 (𝑃 = 𝐾 = 1 or
𝑃 = 𝐾 = 0), the output power of port 2 will reach its DL
3 4
minimum. Thus, the XOR function is realized, Frame envelope P/C K
1553.168 nm 1 Coupler 2 1553.168 nm
𝐶 = 𝑃 ⊕ 𝐾. (5) (b) λ3

Figure 1(b) shows the decryption. In the 1550 nm Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the all optical encryption-
SOA, the probe at 1550 nm will be both phase- decryption system based on an XOR gate.
modulated and gain-modulated, and the ASE noise
within the bandwidth of 1550 nm filter is unavoidable.
In order to suppress the ASE noise coming from the
1550 nm SOA, a continuous waveform is introduced to
make the SOA saturated. In Eq. (4), the decryption
of the encrypted data can also be enabled based on
the algorithms of the encryption,
𝑃 = 𝐶 ⊕ 𝐾 = 𝑃 ⊕ 𝐾 ⊕ 𝐾. (6)
With respect to the optical switching based on the
XPM in the experiment, when the input probe power
at the C-band is 280 µW, the relationship between
the control power and the output power with different
SOA drive currents is shown in Fig. 2. When the SOA
drive current is 100 mA, 200 mA and 300 mA, the con- Fig. 2. Output power of switch versus control power at
different SOA drive currents.
trol power at 1308.499 nm which brings 𝜋 to the non-
linear differential phase shift is 4.27 mW, 2.21 mW and

1308.499 nm 1556.019 nm
D FB WDM
D FB K K
Coupler DL
MD Circulator
1556.019 nm WDM 1310 nm 1310 nm
P A SOA B
Encryption

2.5 Gb/s WD Circulator

PPG WDM M
2.5 Gb/s Trigger PC DL
Clock 3 4
Frame Coupler D
Divider FPGA D FB 1 Coupler 2
Clock Envelope C/P K
1556.019 nm
1556.019 nm
C EDFA DL
Clock

Circulator

Filter
Trigger

Decryption

Circulator

1550 nm CW
E
SOA F
W
WDM DM
PC DL
1553.168 nm 6 8
Frame P/K C
FPGA D FB Coupler
Envelope 5 7 1553.168 nm

Fig. 3. Experimental setup of the all optical encryption-decryption system.

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 CHIN. PHYS. LETT. Vol. 26, No. 7 (2009) 074219

Figure 3 shows the experimental setup. The cur- about 3 dB of the ASE noise of 1550 nm SOA is sup-
rents of the 1310 nm and 1550 nm SOAs are 300 mA pressed by introducing a CW, as shown in Fig. 6. In
and the CW injected into the 1550 nm SOA is order to measure the PDL, we change the polarization
0.86 mW at 1555.68 nm to make the SOA saturated. of 𝑃 , 𝐾 and 𝐶 by adding a polarization controller. As
The intensity-modulated 2.5 Gbit/s nonreturn-to-zero a result, along with all possible states of the polariza-
(NRZ) signals at 1308.5 nm and 1556.02 nm are di- tion, the fluctuation of the output power of the XOR
rectly modulated using the modulator driven by the gate is within 1 dB.
pulse pattern generator (PPG) with the binary se-
quence 11101101100100101. Through the wavelength P

(500 mW/div)
division multiplexer (WDM) with 0.4 nm bandwidth
K
and 2 × 2 coupler, 𝑃 and 𝐾 at 1308.499 nm are ob-
tained by introducing a 12.5 cm fiber delay line at one

C/K⊕P
of output ports of the coupler. At the same time, as
control pulses in the decryption, 𝐾 at 1556.019 nm is

Power
also obtained. The length of 𝑃 , 𝐾 and 𝐶, i.e. 𝑇𝑐 ,

P/C⊕K
is 6.8 ns, and the duration of frame envelope synchro-
nized 𝑇𝑝 is 12.8 ns. In order to avoid the overlap of
Time 1 ns/div Time 150 ps/div
counter propagating probes in the SOA, the interval of
the 15 ns arrival time is introduced by a 3.125 m DL Fig. 5. Waveform and the eye diagram of plaintext, key,
in the fiber loop. The polarization controllers (PC) ciphertext and decrypted plaintext.
are used to bias the polarization of the loops. The
WDM in the loop can be used to import the control

Power (50 mW/div)

beams and export the amplified control beams and the Signal

SOA’s ASE. An erbium-doped fibre amplifier (EDFA) Filter

SOA (a)
is placed at the output port of encryption to compen- WDM
sate for about 10 dB insertion loss of the 1310 nm SOA Continuous
wave light
and the 2 mW CW is injected into EDFA to restrain
(b)
the ASE.
Time (50 ms/div)
Regarding this system, its major limitation is the
high requirement for precise synchronization. In or- Fig. 6. ASE noise of SOA (a) without CW and (b) with CW.
der to synchronize 𝑃 , 𝐾, 𝐶 with the frame envelope,
the same clock source and trigger are shared by 𝑃 , 𝐾, In conclusion, an encryption-decryption technique
𝐶 and frame envelope, and a 0.1-µm high-precision using the XOR logic gate based on the XPM is pro-
DL is employed. The synchronization between con- posed. The application of the XOR gate is expanded.
trol pulses and probe at the point 𝐴, 𝐵, 𝐸 is shown The feasibility of the encryption-decryption technique
in Fig. 4. is verified by handling the binary signals at 2.5 Gbps.
For the XOR gate of each stage, the penalty in the
ER which is less than 3 dB is observed, because the
Power 500 mW/div

P or K
Power (dBm)

2.4
1308.499 nm

1556.019 nm

Synchronized
1310 nm SOA does not add any in-band ASE noise to
-7.6
frame envelope the 1550 nm probe and about 3 dB of the ASE noise
-17.6
of 1550 nm SOA is suppressed by introducing a CW.
-27.6
Time 2 ns/div
2 ns/div 100 nm/div The PDL is about 1 dB along with all possible states
At port A B Wavelength (nm) of the polarization of 𝑃 , 𝐾 and 𝐶. If the system is
Power 500 mW/div

2.4 applied at 10 Gb/s and above, it is necessary to over-

Power (dBm)

C
1556.019 nm
1553.168 nm

Synchronized
-7.6
come pattering effects imposed by the slow recovery
frame envelope
time of the SOA, by using a concatenated SOA and
-17.6
electroabsorption modulator (EAM)[11] or by adopt-
Time 2 ns/div
-27.6
1.00 nm/div
ing other XOR schemes.
At port E Wavelength (nm)

Fig. 4. Synchronization between the plaintext, key, ci- References

phertext and synchronized frame envelope.
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1–6 June 2008) p 714
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[6] Davis J A et al 2000 Appl. Opt. 39 1549
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[10] Durhuus T et al 1994 Photon. Technol. Lett. 6 53
add any in-band ASE noise to the 1550 nm probe and [11] Zhou Enbo et al 2008 Opt. Express 16 215
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