The physical layer security (PLS) performance of a
wireless communication link through a large reflecting surface
(LRS) with phase errors is analyzed. Leveraging recent results
that express the LRS-based composite channel as an equivalent
scalar fading channel, we show that the eavesdropper’s link
is Rayleigh distributed and independent of the legitimate link.
The different scaling laws of the legitimate and eavesdroppers
signal-to-noise ratios with the number of reflecting elements,
and the reasonably good performance even in the case of
coarse phase quantization, show the great potential of LRS-aided
communications to enhance PLS in practical wireless set-ups.
