Physical unclonable functions (PUFs) are devices which are easily probed but difficult to predict.Optical PUFs have been discussed within the literature, with traditional optical PUFs typically using spatial light modulators, coherent illumination, and scattering volumes; however, these systems can be large, expensive, and difficult to maintain alignment in practical conditions.We propose and demonstrate a new kind of optical PUF based on computational imaging and compressive sensing to address these challenges with traditional optical PUFs.This work describes the design, simulation, and prototyping of this computational optical PUF (COPUF) that utilizes incoherent polychromatic illumination passing through an additively manufactured refracting optical polymer element.We demonstrate the ability to pass information through a COPUF using a variety of sampling methods, including the use of compressive sensing.The sensitivity of the COPUF system is also explored.We explore non-traditional PUF configurations enabled by the COPUF architecture.The double COPUF system, which employees two serially connected COPUFs, is proposed and analyzed as a means to authenticate and communicate between two entities that have previously agreed to communicate.This configuration enables estimation of a message inversion key without the calculation of individual COPUF inversion keys at any point in the PUF life cycle.Our results show that it is possible to construct inexpensive optical PUFs using computational imaging.This could lead to new uses of PUFs in places where electrical PUFs cannot be utilized effectively, as low cost tags and seals, and potentially as authenticating and communicating devices.
Physical unclonable functions (PUFs) are devices which are easily probed but difficult to predict.Optical PUFs have been discussed within the literature, with traditional optical PUFs typically using spatial light modulators, coherent illumination, and scattering volumes; however, these systems can be large, expensive, and difficult to maintain alignment in practical conditions.We propose and demonstrate a new kind of optical PUF based on computational imaging and compressive sensing to address these challenges with traditional optical PUFs.This work describes the design, simulation, and prototyping of this computational optical PUF (COPUF) that utilizes incoherent polychromatic illumination passing through an additively manufactured refracting optical polymer element.We demonstrate the ability to pass information through a COPUF using a variety of sampling methods, including the use of compressive sensing.The sensitivity of the COPUF system is also explored.We explore non-traditional PUF configurations enabled by the COPUF architecture.The double COPUF system, which employees two serially connected COPUFs, is proposed and analyzed as a means to authenticate and communicate between two entities that have previously agreed to communicate.This configuration enables estimation of a message inversion key without the calculation of individual COPUF inversion keys at any point in the PUF life cycle.Our results show that it is possible to construct inexpensive optical PUFs using computational imaging.This could lead to new uses of PUFs in places where electrical PUFs cannot be utilized effectively, as low cost tags and seals, and potentially as authenticating and communicating devices.
Abstract A physical unclonable function (PUF) device leverages manufacturing randomness to generate a unique fingerprint for secure authentication, encryption, and counterfeit prevention. Optical PUFs (OPUFs) have gained prominence due to their strong security, light‐based challenge‐response mechanisms, and potential for quantum‐secure encryption. These devices have promising applications for hardware security, authentication, cryptographic key generation, and anti‐counterfeiting measures across multiple industries. This review enlightens the diverse material platforms used for OPUFs, ranging from fiber optics and liquid crystals to advanced semiconductor nanocrystals and plasmonic metasurfaces, each offering distinct optical characteristics that impact security strength. While no single material system dominates the field, hybrid and multi‐model approaches integrating low‐dimensional materials are being explored to enhance reliability and scalability. Finally, the challenges and future perspectives are outlined, including adaptive OPUFs architectures, utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) for challenge‐response generation, and their integration into quantum communication networks, highlighting how next‐generation semiconductor materials can further advance OPUFs technologies.
Disordered photonic structures are promising materials for the realization of physical unclonable functions (PUF), physical objects that can overcome the limitations of conventional digital security methods and that enable cryptographic protocols immune against attacks by future quantum computers. One PUF limitation, so far, has been that their physical configuration is either fixed or can only be permanently modified, and hence allowing only one token per device. We show that it is possible to overcome this limitation by creating a reconfigurable structure made by light-transformable polymers, in which the physical structure of the unclonable function itself can be reversibly reconfigured. We term this novel concept Hyper PUF or HPUF in that it allows a large number of physical unclonable functions to co-exist simultaneously within one and the same device. The physical transformation of the structure is done all-optically in a reversible and spatially controlled fashion. Our novel technology provides a massive enhancement in security generating more complex keys containing a larger amount of information. At the same time, it allows for new applications, for example serving multiple clients on a single encryption device and the practical implementation of quantum secure authentication of data.
In this paper we reconsider Physical Unclonable Functions based on the traditional approach of optical scattering to randomly disordered optical media. These devices have the major advantage of utilization of simple and very low-cost technology and therefore the potential to be installed all over the network providing critical cybersecurity operations such authentication, real time cryptographic key generation and generation of trues random sequences. To comply with the requirements of the aforementioned operations, critical issues must be resolved. We propose and implement algorithms for the generation of an almost unlimited number of uncorrelated optical challenges. We show experimentally that the uncorrelated challenges result in optical speckle which, after the proper numerical processing, produce true random sequences. Moreover, we determine the optimal illumination conditions to achieve the best possible performance in terms of robustness and unpredictability. Last but not least, we studied the resilience of the PUF against machine learning attacks. We conclude experimentally that under certain illuminating conditions and using the aforementioned uncorrelated challenges, the network cannot predict the responses even after being trained with a very large number of challenge responses (24,000 pairs).
The scope of this paper is to demonstrate a fully working and compact photonic Physical Unclonable Function (PUF) device capable of operating in real life scenarios as an authentication mechanism and random number generator. For this purpose, an extensive experimental investigation of a Polymer Optical Fiber (POF) and a diffuser as PUF tokens is performed and the most significant properties are evaluated using the proper mathematical tools. Two different software algorithms, the Random Binary Method (RBM) and Singular Value Decomposition (SVD), were tested for optimized key extraction and error correction codes have been incorporated for enhancing key reproducibility. By taking into consideration the limitations and overall performance derived by the experimental evaluation of the system, the designing details towards the implementation of a miniaturized, energy efficient and low-cost device are extensively discussed. The performance of the final device is thoroughly evaluated, demonstrating a long-term stability of 1 week, an operating temperature range of 50C, an exponentially large pool of unique Challenge-Response Pairs (CRPs), recovery after power failure and capability of generating NIST compliant true random numbers.
Because of advancements in digital communication and associated technology, security and privacy have become crucial. Physical Unclonable Function (PUF) is one of the promising security solutions due to their adaptability, reliability, and secure nature. PUFs are unique identifiers that can be presented in many forms due to their unique structure and application. However, their application might be limited due to the reliability and fabrication process. Hence, a new PUF is proposed in this study, which comprises a semi-distributed fiber optic device. The proposed solution can overcome reliability concerns based on the unique behavior of biosensors and offers a simple fabrication process. Based on the random information of the physical characteristics, Physical Unclonable Functions has demonstrated potential for secure device authentication. This thesis describes the design, implementation, and evaluation of semi-distributed fiber optic devices as robust PUFs. Using intrinsic variability of fiber optic interferometric configurations, each device produces a unique spectrum showing good intra-device repeatability and high inter-device differentiation. Experimental validation of spectral reflectivity measurements confirms low internal variability, crucial for reliable authentication. In addition to these correlations, this research shows extensive simulations, allowing us to thoroughly analyze device uniqueness and stability, across a broad range of environmental scenarios. The proposed semi-distributed type of the fiber optic PUFs is promising solutions for secure and scalable authentication in applications that require high levels of security and integrity. This study represents a step towards the practical deployment and enhancement of fiber-optic PUF solutions into secure systems verification.
In this work, the novel usage of a physically unclonable function composed of a network of Mach-Zehnder interferometers for authentication tasks is described. The physically unclonable function hardware is completely reconfigurable, allowing for a large number of seemingly independent devices to be utilized, thus imitating a large array of single-response physically unclonable functions. It is proposed that any reconfigurable array of Mach-Zehnder interferometers can be used as an authentication mechanism, not only for physical objects, but for information transmitted both classically and quantumly. The proposed use-case for a fully-optical physically unclonable function, designed with reconfigurable hardware, is to authenticate messages between a trusted and possibly untrusted party; verifying that the messages received are generated by the holder of the authentic device.