  Optical chaos is a topic of current research characterized by
high-dimensional nonlinearity which is attributed to the delay-induced
dynamics, high bandwidth and easy modular implementation of optical feedback.
In light of these facts, which adds enough confusion and diffusion properties
for secure communications, we explore the synchronization phenomena in
spatiotemporal semiconductor laser systems. The novel system is used in a
two-phase colored image encryption process. The high-dimensional chaotic
attractor generated by the system produces a completely randomized chaotic time
series, which is ideal in the secure encoding of messages. The scheme thus
illustrated is a two-phase encryption method, which provides sufficiently high
confusion and diffusion properties of chaotic cryptosystem employed with unique
data sets of processed chaotic sequences. In this novel method of cryptography,
the chaotic phase masks are represented as images using the chaotic sequences
as the elements of the image. The scheme drastically permutes the positions of
the picture elements. The next additional layer of security further alters the
statistical information of the original image to a great extent along the
three-color planes. The intermediate results during encryption demonstrate the
infeasibility for an unauthorized user to decipher the cipher image. Exhaustive
statistical tests conducted validate that the scheme is robust against noise
and resistant to common attacks due to the double shield of encryption and the
infinite dimensionality of the relevant system of partial differential
equations.
