Bifurcation Generated True Random Numbers In Nonlinear Micromechanical Resonators

This work demonstrates a nonlinear micromechanical resonator for true random number generation through constructive utilization of internal resonance (IR). Specifically, the IR system manifests distinct pure sinusoidal and amplitude modulations (AM), delineated by the saddle-node on an invariant circle (SNIC) bifurcation. Operating in proximity to this bifurcation point with a fixed frequency actuation setup, slight background thermal fluctuations induce stochastic shifts in the bifurcation boundary. Therefore, the nonlinear resonator exhibits stochastic transitions between pure sinusoidal and AM response branches, causing the IR induced equidistant frequency spikes, i.e., frequency combs, to present and vanish randomly, thereby serving as the foundation for realizing bit "0/1". In this work, the generated 40960-bit sequence passes the NIST SP800-22 statistical test [1] without post-processing. Moreover, the NIST SP800-90B independent and identically distributed (IID) test of [2] indicates a minimum entropy of 0.730292.