IEEE/CIC ICCC 2014 Symposium on Optical Communication Systems and Networks

±ʌ/2-Phase-Shift Spectral Phase Encoding for

Security Improvement in the Optical Code based
System

Ali Zahid1, Bo Dai1,2, Yao Chen1, Dong Wang1, Chunxian Tao1, Dawei Zhang1†, Xu Wang2*
1. Engineering Research Center of Optical Instrument and System, Ministry of Education, Shanghai Key Lab of Modern
Optical System, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, No. 516 JunGong Road, Shanghai, 200093, China.
2. Institute of Photonics and Quantum Sciences, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, EH14 4AS, United Kingdom
† [email protected]
* [email protected]

Abstract—A novel spectral phase encoding scheme by using domain, the different wavelength components of the signal is
±ʌ/2 phase shift in the en/decoding is proposed. The scheme can mapped into the different time slot and a phase modulator is
submerge the code information in the encoded signals well, used to introduce the phase shifts between the different
improving the security against code extraction from the encoded wavelength components [5–7]. This approach has the
signals. Furthermore, based on the theoretical analysis, the advantages of rapid programming and fast optical code
coding performance of the proposed scheme is guaranteed. reconfiguration.
Keywords—spectral phase encoding; security; secure optical The security is the most important issue of the optical
communication. encoding techniques. For a secure optical encoding,
eavesdroppers cannot extract the information from the
I. INTRODUCTION encoded signals because they do not have optical codes to
decode the encoded signals correctly and recover the original
Spectral phase-encoding is a key technique in the optical information. However, it has been found that the spectral
code based systems, such as optical secure communications phase-encoding using 0 and ʌ as phase shifts has security
and optical code-division multiple access (OCDMA) systems vulnerability [1, 8]. When the two adjacent code chips are
[1–4]. The spectral phase-encoding can be realized by using a different, (–1, 1) or (1, –1), the phase shift between the two
pair of dispersive components and a phase modulator. A adjacent spectral bins is ʌ. The ʌ phase shift results in a dip in
broadband optical signal is firstly input into the first dispersive the spectrum. Since the shape of the encoded spectrum hints
component, in which the signal is broadened temporally or the phase shifts used during the encoding and the phase shifts
spatially according to the dispersion characteristics. Different are directly related to the optical code, eavesdroppers can
wavelength components are dispersed in the different time-slot easily extract the optical code and know the information from
or spatial position. By using a phase modulator to introduce the encoded signal. The privacy of the data can be intercepted
phase shifts between the adjacent wavelength components, the and the security of the system cannot be guaranteed. The
signal is encoded with a specific optical code. Then, the security vulnerability of the spectral phase encoding using 0/ʌ
second dispersive component with the opposite dispersion phase shift will be discussed in the following section.
characteristics is used to compress the broadened and encoded
optical signal into the original form. There are several In this paper, we discuss the security vulnerability of the
approaches to realize spectral phase-encoding. One approach spectral phase encoding using 0/ʌ phase shift. We introduce
is to use a pair of gratings to disperse and compress the optical how to extract the optical code from an encoded signal in
signal spatially [2, 3]. Between the pairs of gratings, a spatial detail. In the time-spreading OCDMA systems, the similar
light modulator (SLM) is employed for phase modulation. The problem has been put forward [9, 10]. When the phase shift is
approach is based on bulk optical components and very ʌ, a dip occurs and the encoding is not secure. The problem is
straightforward to manipulate. In the other approach, two addressed by using ±ʌ/2 to make the encoded waveform
spans of optical fibers with opposite dispersion characteristics uniform [10, 11]. There is no distinguishing feature can be
or a pair of chirped gratings are used for signal stretch and found in the encoded waveform. Thus, the security of the time
compression. After spreading the optical signal in the time spreading encoding is improved. To address the security issue
in the spectral phase encoding, we propose a novel spectral
The project is partially supported by National Natural Science Foundation phase encoding scheme by using ±ʌ/2 as phase shift for
of China (61378060), National Science Instrument Important Project encoding. We analyze the security of the proposed encoding
(2011YQ14014704), National High Technology Research and Development
Program of china (863Program) (2013AA030602), Dawn Program of
scheme. Furthermore, we investigate the coding performance
Shanghai Education Commission (11SG44) and Pujiang Project of the ±ʌ/2-phase-shift spectral phase shift encoding scheme.
(14PJ1406900).

978-1-4799-4146-9/14/$31.00 ©2014 IEEE 131

 IEEE/CIC ICCC 2014 Symposium on Optical Communication Systems and Networks

II. SECURITY VULNERABILITY Figure 1(a) and Fig. 2(a) show the encoded waveforms for
In the spectral phase encoding, phase shifts between 7-chip and 31-chip optical codes, respectively. The encoded
adjacent spectral bins is corresponding to optical codes. Table waveforms present in a noise-like forms, which can protect the
I shows the relationship between the optical code and the privacy of the data from eavesdropping. The eavesdropper
phase shift. As a binary phase shift encoding, 0/ʌ-phase-shift cannot extract the optical codes from the waveforms of the
spectral phase encoding uses ʌ phase shift between two encoded signals. Fig. 1(b) and Fig. 2(b) show the spectra of
different code chips. And there is no phase shift when two the encoded signals. Red dashed line represents the spectrum
adjacent code chips are same. of the input optical short pulse and the blue solid line is the
spectrum after encoding. The bandwidth of the encoded
spectra and the loss are resulted from the filtering of the
TABLE I. ENCODING RULE FOR 0/Ȇ-PHASE-SHIFT SPECTRAL PHASE spectral components in the calculation. The spectra of the
ENCODING
encoded signals give the eavesdroppers hints of the code
Two adjacent code chips Phase shift information. The dip is resulted from the deconstructive
–1 –1 0
interference cancelation between adjacent wavelength
components which have a ʌ phase shift between them. On the
–1 1 ʌ other hand, if the phase shift is 0, the adjacent wavelength
1 –1 ʌ
components have constructive interference and no dip can be
found. From the ʌ phase shift, the optical code can be derived.
11 0 The procedure of the optical code extraction from the encoded
spectrum is as follows.

(a)
(a)

(b)
(b)

Fig. 1 (a) Waveform and (b) spectrum of the 7-chip encoded signal using Fig. 2 (a) Waveform and (b) spectrum of the 31-chip encoded signal using
0/ʌ-phase-shift encoding. 0/ʌ-phase-shift encoding.

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1. Check the potential dip positions in the spectrum and find III. ±Ȇ/2-PHASE-SHIFT SPECTRAL PHASE ENCODING
out dips.
A. Security Improvement
2. Divide the spectrum into N bins, where N is the length of
the optical code. To address the security problem, ±ʌ/2-phase-shift spectral
phase encoding is proposed. In the proposed scheme, the
3. Assume the fist code chip as –1 or 1. phase shifts used in the encoding are +ʌ/2 and –ʌ/2, instead of
4. Derive the next code chip. If there is a dip between the 0 and ʌ. Table II lists the relationship between the optical code
current and next bins, the next code chip is different from and the phase shifts. When the two adjacent code chips are
the current one. Otherwise, the next code chip is same as same, the phase shift introduced into the signal during the
the current one. encoding is +ʌ/2. Otherwise, the phase shift is –ʌ/2.

5. Repeat Step 4 to derive the whole N-chip optical codes

TABLE II. ENCODING RULE FOR ±Ȇ/2-PHASE-SHIFT SPECTRAL PHASE
By using the code extraction method, the optical codes can ENCODING
be extracted from the encoded spectrum easily. Although the Two adjacent code chips Phase shift
encoded signals have noise-like waveform, the eavesdroppers
–1 –1 +ʌ/2
can figure out the optical codes from the encoded spectra
straightforwardly. Therefore, the spectral phase encoding –1 1 –ʌ/2
using 0/ʌ phase shift cannot guarantee the security of the
1 –1 –ʌ/2
secure communications.
11 +ʌ/2

(a)
(a)

(b)
(b)

Fig. 3 (a) Waveform and (b) spectrum of the 7-chip encoded signal Fig. 4 (a) Waveform and (b) spectrum of the 31-chip encoded signal
using ±ʌ/2-phase-shift encoding. using ±ʌ/2-phase-shift encoding

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The encoded waveforms for 7-chip and 31-chip optical B. Coding Performance
code are shown in Fig. 3(a) and Fig. 4(a). The encoded signals Coding performance is a very important criterion to judge
have noise-like waveforms, in which eavesdroppers cannot coding schemes. The coding performance is evaluated by
find the code information. The encoded spectra are shown in investigating the decoded signals. If the decoder matches the
Fig. 3(b) and Fig. 4(b). The spectra have uniform shapes. The encoder, a high-intensity autocorrelation peak appears after
spectra fluctuate along the wavelength due to the effect of the decoding. Otherwise, if the decoder uses a different optical
encoding. In the encoded spectra, where there is a phase shift, code from the one that the encoder uses, a low-intensity noise-
there is a small dip, regardless of +ʌ/2 or –ʌ/2 phase shift. like signal is obtained. By setting a threshold at a certain level,
Both +ʌ/2 and –ʌ/2 phase shifts leads to an incomplete the corsrectly decoded autocorrelation signal can be
interference cancelation between adjacent wavelength distinguished from the incorrectly decoded cross-correlation
components, which results in small dips with the same signal. The ratio between the autocorrelation peak intensity
intensity fluctuation. To make it clear, the dashed lines are and the maximum intensity of the cross-correlation (P/C) is a
depicted in the figures to mark the positions of the phase shifts critical value to evaluate the coding performance. The coding
and the corresponding phase shifts and the optical codes are performance of the ±ʌ/2-phase-shift spectral phase encoding is
marked above the spectra. The shapes of the spectra are not analyzed by calculating the decoded signal and comparing
related to the optical codes. The uniformity of the spectra with that of the 0/ʌ-phase-shift spectral phase encoding.
makes the eavesdroppers impossible to read out the code
information from the encoded spectra. Fig. 5 illustrates the calculated decoded waveforms for
0/ʌ-phase-shift spectral phase encoding. In the calculation, the
Therefore, the ±ʌ/2-phase-shift spectral phase encoding insertion loss of the encoding and decoding, besides the
can conceal code information well in the encoded signals and spectral-component filtering characteristics, is neglected. The
guarantee the high security. red solid line represents the input short optical pulse. The

(a)
(a)

(b)
(b)

Fig. 5 Decoded waveforms for (a) 7-chip and (b) 31-chip using 0/ʌ- Fig. 6 Decoded waveforms for (a) 7-chip and (b) 31-chip using ±ʌ/2-
phase-shift encoding. Red solid line: input pulse. Black solid line: phase-shift encoding. Red solid line: input pulse. Black solid line:
autocorrelation signal. Blue dashed line: cross-correlation signal. autocorrelation signal. Blue dashed line: cross-correlation signal.

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black solid line is the correctly decoded signal by using the proposed ±ʌ/2-phase-shift spectral phase encoding can
matched decoder and the blue dashed line is the incorrectly guarantee both the security and coding performance.
decoded signal by using the unmatched decoder. The
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