Work

Theoretical study of randomly distributed gold nanoparticles as potential plasmonic physically unclonable functions

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: We theoretically study a random arrangement of cylindrical gold nanoparticles (NPs) deposited on a dielectric/gold substrate as a potential plasmonic physically unclonable function (PUF). We use the coupled dipole approximation (CDA) method in order to reduce the computation time and memory demand. Each NP is modeled as a single electric dipole through the polarizability tensor of a spheroidal-shaped NP, while the interparticle coupling is described by Green’s tensors. The concept of plasmonic PUF considered here consists of transforming the electric field maps obtained by the CDA into 2D-binary matrices using a key generation algorithm. A PUF must satisfy different criteria to be efficient, including uniqueness that is evaluated by the distributions of Hamming inter-distances. In this work, we propose to evaluate the uniqueness property of different PUFs characterized by substrates whose dielectric layer thickness is variable. We also test the ability to generate unique keys when the challenges to which our PUF concept is subjected change, namely, the wavelength, angle, and plane of incidence.

Source: Journal of Applied Physics

DOI: 10.1063/5.0244390

Authors: Ophélie Saison-Francioso, Gaëtan Lévêque, Yan Pennec, Abdellatif Akjouj

Institutions: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Université de Lille, Institut d'Electronique, de Microélectronique et de Nanotechnologie

Language: English

Topic: Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) and Hardware Security

Subfield: Hardware and Architecture

Field: Computer Science

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $3,500

Funder: Agence Nationale de la Recherche