In this work the novel usage of a physically unclonable function composed of a network of Mach-Zehnder interferometers for authentication tasks is described. The physically unclonable function hardware is completely reconfigurable, allowing for a large number of seemingly independent devices to be utilized, thus imitating a large array of single-response physically unclonable functions. It is proposed that any reconfigurable array of Mach-Zehnder interferometers can be used as an authentication mechanism, not only for physical objects, but for information transmitted both classically and quantumly. The proposed use-case for a fully-optical physically unclonable function, designed with reconfigurable hardware, is to authenticate messages between a trusted and possibly untrusted party; verifying that the messages received are generated by the holder of the authentic device.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2012.10326,
title = {Utilizing a Fully Optical and Reconfigurable PUF as a Quantum Authentication Mechanism},
author = {H S. Jacinto and A. Matthew Smith},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2012.10326},
year = {2020}
}