Heteronanostructured Field-Effect Transistors for Enhancing Entropy and Parameter Space in Electrical Unclonable...

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Electrical Engineering
• Cybersecurity

Background:

• Hardware security is critical in connected consumer and medical devices.
• Existing electrical physical unclonable functions (PUFs) using nanomaterials or 2D transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) face limitations in entropy and parameter space, increasing vulnerability.
• These limitations hinder the practical application of PUFs for secure cryptographic key generation, identification, and authentication.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce a novel electrical PUF with enhanced entropy and parameter space.
• To leverage 2D TMDC heteronanostructures integrated into field-effect transistors (FETs) for improved PUF performance.
• To address the limitations of current PUF technologies for robust hardware security.

Main Methods:

• Fabrication of FETs incorporating lateral heteronanostructures of 2D molybdenum disulfide and tungsten disulfide.
• Utilizing the inherent variability of FETs to expand the parameter space for challenge-response pairs.
• Comprehensive analysis of PUF performance metrics including bit uniformity, reproducibility, uniqueness, randomness, and error rates.

Main Results:

• Demonstrated an electrical PUF based on 2D TMDC heteronanostructure FETs with significantly enhanced entropy and parameter space.
• Achieved stably repeatable yet highly variable FET characteristics suitable for PUF applications.
• Validated strong FET-to-FET variability, crucial for robust security.

Conclusions:

• The developed 2D material heteronanostructure-driven electrical PUFs offer a scalable and deployable security solution.
• This approach enhances the security and practicality of PUFs for diverse hardware devices.
• The technology shows promise for immediate implementation in securing consumer and medical electronics.