Quantum Physical Unclonable Functions (QPUFs) offer a physically grounded approach to secure authentication, extending the capabilities of classical PUFs. This review covers their theoretical foundations and key implementation challenges—such as quantum memories and Haar‐randomness—, and distinguishes QPUFs from Quantum Readout PUFs (QR‐PUFs), more experimentally accessible yet less robust against quantum‐capable adversaries. A co‐citation‐based selection method is employed to trace the evolution of QPUF architectures, from early QR‐PUFs to more recent Hybrid PUFs (HPUFs). This method further supports a discussion on the role of information‐theoretic analysis in mitigating inconsistencies in QPUF responses, underscoring the deep connection between secret‐key generation and authentication. Despite notable advances, achieving practical and robust QPUF‐based authentication remains an open challenge.
Quantum Physical Unclonable Functions (QPUFs) offer a physically grounded approach to secure authentication, extending the capabilities of classical PUFs. This review covers their theoretical foundations and key implementation challenges—such as quantum memories and Haar‐randomness—, and distinguishes QPUFs from Quantum Readout PUFs (QR‐PUFs), more experimentally accessible yet less robust against quantum‐capable adversaries. A co‐citation‐based selection method is employed to trace the evolution of QPUF architectures, from early QR‐PUFs to more recent Hybrid PUFs (HPUFs). This method further supports a discussion on the role of information‐theoretic analysis in mitigating inconsistencies in QPUF responses, underscoring the deep connection between secret‐key generation and authentication. Despite notable advances, achieving practical and robust QPUF‐based authentication remains an open challenge.
ABSTRACT Quantum Physical Unclonable Functions (QPUFs) offer a physically grounded approach to secure authentication, extending the capabilities of classical PUFs. This review covers their theoretical foundations and key implementation challenges—such as quantum memories and Haar‐randomness—, and distinguishes QPUFs from Quantum Readout PUFs (QR‐PUFs), more experimentally accessible yet less robust against quantum‐capable adversaries. A co‐citation‐based selection method is employed to trace the evolution of QPUF architectures, from early QR‐PUFs to more recent Hybrid PUFs (HPUFs). This method further supports a discussion on the role of information‐theoretic analysis in mitigating inconsistencies in QPUF responses, underscoring the deep connection between secret‐key generation and authentication. Despite notable advances, achieving practical and robust QPUF‐based authentication remains an open challenge.
Quantum Physically Unclonable Functions (QPUFs) are emerging hardware primitives that harness inherent quantum principle to produce device-specific challenge–response behavior. By embedding quantum-mechanical "fingerprints" into devices, QPUFs can derive unique cryptographic keys and identities, yielding robust hardware roots of trust. This paper systematically reviews QPUF principles, architectures, and security properties, and explores their integration into next-generation networking paradigms with industrial demonstrations. We detail how QPUFs can enable secure device authentication, key generation across quantum communication links, 6G wireless, IoT/edge deployments emphasizing practical implementation strategies and system integration in future networks along with technical challenges. Through this comprehensive analysis, we highlight the transformative potential of QPUFs in delivering hardware-rooted, information-theoretic security for interconnected networks, and outline directions for further research.
With the increase of digital devices, the need for robust authentication mechanisms has become crucial. Traditional methods relying on cryptographic key management are susceptible to various risks, particularly the exposure of keys to interception or theft. As cyber threats evolve, the short-comings of these methods are accentuated, necessitating more secure solutions. Physically Unclonable Functions (PUFs) have emerged as a potential alternative, utilizing inherent hardware variations for device authentication without stored secrets. However, recent studies reveal vulnerabilities in conventional PUF implementations. Simultaneously, there's a growing recognition for authentication mechanisms tailored for quantum devices. This recognition has prompted the exploration of Quantum PUFs (QPUFs), which represent a promising solution to enhance security and reliability, leveraging the unique properties of quantum mechanics. In this paper, we propose a novel approach using QPUFs for device authentication that does not require any quantum communication channel or even quantum memory. We design a quantum circuit to serve as a QPUF, evaluating metrics such as instability, randomness, and uniqueness. Additionally, we devise an authentication scheme that exploits the challenge-response paradigm, taking advantage of the distinctive properties of quantum PUFs. Furthermore, we delineate a threat model to identify and mitigate potential risks associated with the authentication process. By assessing the proposed QPUFs efficacy on real real quantum hardware provided by IBM, this research contributes to the advancement of secure authentication protocols in quantum era.
We propose a theoretical framework to quantitatively describe physical unclonable functions (PUFs), including extensions to quantum protocols, so-called quantum readout PUFs (QR-PUFs). (QR-) PUFs are physical systems with challenge-response behavior intended to be hard to clone or simulate. Their use has been proposed in several cryptographic protocols, with particular emphasis on authentication. Here, we provide theoretical assumptions and definitions behind the intuitive ideas of (QR-) PUFs. This allows us to quantitatively characterize the security of such devices in cryptographic protocols. First, by generalizing previous ideas, we design a general authentication scheme which is applicable to different physical implementations of both classical PUFs and (QR-) PUFs. Then, we define the robustness and the unclonability, which allows us to derive security thresholds for (QR-) PUF authentication and paves the way to develop further new authentication protocols.
Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) provide hardware-level security by exploiting intrinsic randomness to produce device-unique responses. However, machine learning and side-channel attacks increasingly undermine their classical assumptions, calling for new approaches to ensure unforgeability. Quantum mechanics naturally supports this goal through intrinsic randomness and the no-cloning theorem, motivating the study of Quantum Physical Unclonable Functions (QPUFs). Yet, existing QPUF models often assume ideal unitary dynamics, neglecting non-unitary effects such as decoherence and dissipation that arise in real quantum devices. This work introduces a new class of non-unitary QPUFs that leverage open quantum system dynamics as a foundation for security. Three architectures are proposed: the Dissipative QPUF (D-QPUF), which uses amplitude damping as an entropy source; the Measurement-Feedback QPUF (MF-QPUF), which employs mid-circuit measurements and conditional unitaries; and the Lindbladian QPUF (L-QPUF), which models Markovian noise via the Lindblad master equation and Trotter-Suzuki decomposition. Simulation results show that these non-unitary designs achieve strong uniqueness, uniformity, and unforgeability, with controllable reliability trade-offs from stochastic noise. The L-QPUF, in particular, exhibits exponential modeling resistance under limited challenge-response access. By reframing environmental noise as a constructive resource, this work establishes a framework for noise-aware quantum hardware authentication and highlights non-unitary evolution as a viable foundation for post-quantum security.
Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) have garnered significant attention for their potential in enhancing the security of IoT devices, offering an alternative to traditional computational-based approaches. Despite their potential, classical PUFs suffer from critical drawbacks, including vulnerability to machine learning attacks and inadequate defense against quantum adversaries. To address these limitations, alternative architectures utilizing quantum mechanical principles, known as Quantum PUFs (QPUFs), have been proposed. This paper presents a comprehensive survey of the diverse range of QPUFs, detailing their architectures and security features. Additionally, it explores the information-theoretic applications of QPUFs in IoT, including secret key generation, secure storage, authentication, and identification. The findings indicate that classical results translate effectively to the quantum domain in most cases, with QPUFs exhibiting larger capacity regions compared to their classical counterparts.