Optical colour image encryption using spiral phase transform and chaotic pixel scrambling

In this study, we propose a new optical colour image encryption technique using spiral phase transform and chaotic pixel scrambling. For encryption, three channels of the colour image i.e. red, green and blue are first separated and modulated with three different structured phase masks. Spiral phase transform (SPT) with a particular order of modified spiral phase function (MSPF) is utilized for further processing. Random modulus decomposition is applied to the complex output after SPT to generate the private key for decryption. The pixels of the image are scrambled by using the chaotic Tinkerbell map for enhanced security. The order of MSPF, three structured phase masks, parameters of Tinkerbell mapping, and the private key generated during the encryption process serve as the security keys. The robustness of the proposed method is checked against various potential attacks. A series of numerical simulation results are presented to validate the proposed colour image encryption method.