Femtosecond-Laser-Induced Physical Unclonable Random Maze Structure for Storage-Free Encryption.

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Cryptography
• Nanotechnology

Background:

• Physical unclonable functions (PUFs) offer hardware-level security but face challenges with response accessibility and storage.
• Existing PUF designs often require significant storage for responses and keys, limiting their application in miniaturized devices.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a novel, multi-level, and easily accessible PUF system for secure information encryption.
• To demonstrate a storage-free encryption process using PUFs based on gold random maze structures.

Main Methods:

• Fabrication of gold random maze structures using femtosecond-laser-induced plasmonic effects and Marangoni convection.
• Development of independent optical and electrical PUFs leveraging the random morphologies of the gold mazes.
• On-site acquisition of PUF responses and real-time key generation for encryption on an integrated circuit platform.

Main Results:

• Successful creation of independent optical and electrical PUFs based on gold random mazes.
• Demonstration of on-site response acquisition and real-time key generation, enabling secure, storage-free encryption.
• Validation of a high-security encryption process on an integrated circuit, showcasing next-generation security architectures.

Conclusions:

• The proposed gold maze PUFs provide a secure and efficient solution for hardware-level information protection.
• This approach eliminates the need for storing PUF responses and cryptographic keys, paving the way for advanced, on-site security systems.
• The study highlights a significant shift towards next-generation security architectures that rely on real-time key generation and integrated PUF functionalities.