Work

Interface roughness in Resonant Tunnelling Diodes for physically unclonable functions

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Resonant Tunnelling Diodes with Interface Roughness (IR) were investigated for their potential as components of Physically Uncloneable Functions (PUFs). A comparison of an RTD with IR against a ‘smooth’ device without IR, showed a reduction in current and Peak to Valley Current Ratio (PVCR) between the resonant peak and valley currents I r / I v . Furthermore, IR resulted in a perturbation of the Negative Differential Region (NDR) of the IV characteristic to higher bias. This perturbation was due to IR effectively thickening barriers and thereby narrowing the Quantum Well (QW) and leading to a higher ground state QW energy. Variation of correlation length L C and roughness asperity Δ R M S for batches of 25 randomly generated RTDs with IR showed that increasing Δ R M S decreased mean PVCR and increased the standard deviation of the resonant peak voltage V r and current I r . 150 RTDs with an L C of 7.5 nm and Δ R M S of 0.3 nm resulted in a min-entropy of 1.275 bits, showing that 100 RTDs could idealistically compose a PUF encoding 127 bits.

Source: Solid-State Electronics

DOI: 10.1016/j.sse.2025.109131

Authors: Pranav Acharya, Vihar Georgiev

Institution: University of Glasgow

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: $2,410

Funder: Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council