Quantifying the Sensitivity and Unclonability of Optical Physical Unclonable Functions

Year: 2023

Authors: Lio GE., Nocentini S., Pattelli L., Cara E., Wiersma DS., Ruehrmair U., Riboli F.

Autors Affiliation: Natl Res Council CNR INO, Nation Inst Opt, Via Nello Carrara 1, I-50019 Florence, Italy; Univ Florence, European Lab Nonlinear Spect LENS, Via Nello Carrara 1, I-50019 Florence, Italy; Univ Florence, Phys Dept, Via Sansone 1, I-50019 Florence, Italy; Ist Nazl Ric Metrolog INRiM, Adv Mat Metrol & Life Sci, Str Cacce 91, I-10135 Turin, Italy; LMU Munchen, Phys Dept, Schellingstr 4-3, D-80799 Munich, Germany; Univ Connecticut, Elect & Comp Engn ECE Dept, Storrs, CT 06269 USA.

Abstract: Due to their unmatched entropy, complexity, and security level, optical physical unclonable functions (PUFs) currently receive a lot of interest in the literature. Despite the large body of existing works, herein, one of their core features in detail is studied, namely, their physical unclonability. This article tackles this fundamental and yet largely unaddressed issue. In simulations and/or experiments, the sensitivity of diffraction-based optical responses is investigated with respect to various small alterations such as variation in position, size, and number of the scatterers, as well as perturbations in the spatial alignment between the PUF and the measurement apparatus. The analysis focuses on 2D optical PUFs because of their relevance in integrated applications and the need to reply to security concerns that can be raised when the physical structure of the geometry is accessible. Among the results of this study, the sensitivity analysis shows that a positional perturbation of scatterers on the order of 30 nm, that is, far below the wavelength of the probing laser light of 632 nm wavelength, is sufficient to invalidate the PUF response and thus detect forgery attempt. These results support and quantify the high adversarial efforts required to clone optical PUFs, even for 2D layouts.

Journal/Review: ADVANCED PHOTONICS RESEARCH

Volume: 4 (2)      Pages from: 2200225-1  to: 2200225-9

More Information: G.E.L. and S.N. contributed equally to this work. The authors thank H. Cao for fruitful discussion and G. Roati and G. Del Pace for their help with the experimental equipment. This work was supported in part by the US Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) under grant no. FA9550-21-1-0039 with the project Highly Secure Nonlinear Optical PUFs. G.E.L. and F.R. thank the Fiber-Based Planar Antennas for Biosensing and Diagnostics (FASPEC) and the project Complex Photonic Systems (DFM.AD005. 317). G.E.L. also thanks the research project FSE-REACT EU financed by National Social Fund, National Operative Research Program and Innovation 2014-2020 (D.M. 1062/2021). Part of this work was carried out at Nanofacility Piemonte INRiM, a laboratory supported by the Compagnia di San Paolo’’ Foundation, and at the QR Laboratories, INRiM.
KeyWords: authentications; optical physical unclonable functions; Rayleigh-Sommerfeld diffraction; scattering; speckle sensitivity
DOI: 10.1002/adpr.202200225

Citations: 4
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