Electro-optic phase chaos systems with an internal variable and a digital key.
We consider an electro-optic phase chaos system with two feedback loops organized in a parallel configuration such that the dynamics of one of the loops remains internal. We show that this configuration intrinsically conceals in the transmitted variable the internal delay times, which are critical for decoding. The scheme also allows for the inclusion, in a very efficient way, of a digital key generated as a long pseudorandom binary sequence. A single digital key can operate both in the internal and transmitted variables leading to a large sensitivity of the synchronization to a key-mismatch. The combination of intrinsic delay time concealment and digital key selectivity provides the basis for a large enhancement of the confidentiality in chaos-based communications.