The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate the extent to which atmospheric turbulence can be exploited as a robust random number generator. Atmospheric turbulence is considered an inherently random process, due to the complex non-homogeneous system composition and its sensitivity to changes in pressure, temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction. This work describes the background theory on atmospheric turbulence, which attempts to describe its dynamic behavior, as well as experimental work. A Mach-Zehnder interferometer was designed, built, and used to characterize the work in this dissertation; this sensor system enables the collection of empirical data of the phase fluctuation in the temporal domain introduced to an optical beam propagating through the atmosphere. The recorded phase fluctuations were converted into bit streams that were further analyzed in order to search for evidence of non-random properties. Empirical data and results, which attempt to characterize the degree of randomness in the noise introduced into the temporal phase component of an optical wave propagating through the atmosphere as a function of the atmospheric turbulence in the weak turbulence regime, are presented here for the first time.
