Enhancing Physical Layer Secrecy Performance for RIS-Assisted RF-FSO Mixed Wireless System

The reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) is widely recognized as an effective solution for enhancing security in wireless communications, owing to its passive reflective components and the ability to adjust signal phases. In light of this, this study investigates the physical layer security issues for a dual-hop RIS-aided system that makes use of both radio frequency (RF) and free space optical (FSO) connections, while taking into account three different eavesdropping scenarios: i) RF eavesdropping, ii) FSO eavesdropping, and iii) simultaneous RF and FSO eavesdropping. While Nakagami-m distributed fading affects the RF link, Málaga turbulence with pointing error affects the FSO link. The main goal of this research is to guarantee the confidentiality of information, preventing unauthorized access or disclosure. To this…