Robust and Accessible True Random Number Generator Exploiting the Structural Frustration of Nematic Liquid Crystals

Abstract The study proposes a highly credible true random number generator based on the structural frustration of nematic liquid crystals, which refers to the appearance of two energetically equivalent structures in a nematic system. Frustration is induced in a simple liquid crystal cell by applying an electric field and observing optical textures under crossed polarizers. A clockwise or counterclockwise spiral image appears on 630 separate circular electrodes under the electric field, and random binary sequences are obtained by assigning a digit of 0 or 1 to each image. These sequences pass the strict statistical randomness tests of the National Institute of Standards and Technology with a pass rate of 0.992 or higher for the ten applicable tests and exhibit excellent uniformity. Furthermore, a simple method is introduced to convert the binary results to random decimal numbers with only a minimal amount of data processing.