Exploring electrospun nanofibers for physically unclonable functions: a scalable and robust method toward unique identifiers

Abstract

Optical physical unclonable functions (PUFs) have great potentials in the security identification of Internet of Things. In this work, electrospun nanofibers are proposed as a candidate for a nanoscale, robust, stable and scalable PUF. The dark-field reflectance images of the polymer fibers are quantitatively analyzed by Hough transform. We find that the fiber length and orientation distribution reach an optimal point as the fiber density grows up over 850 in 400 x 400 pixels for a polyvinylpyrrolidone nanofiber based PUF device. Subsequently, we test the robustness and randomness of the PUF pattern by using the fiber amount as an encoding feature, generating a reconstruction success rate over 80% and simultaneously an entropy of 260 bits within a mean size of 4 cm2. A scale-invariant algorithm is adopted to identify the uniqueness of each pattern on a 256-sensor device. Furthermore, thermo-, moisture as well as photostability of the authentication process are systematically investigated by comparing polyacrylonitrile to polyvinylpyrrolidone system.

A multicolor carbon dot doped nanofibrous membrane for unclonable anti-counterfeiting and data encryption

“…S3 and S4, ESI †), where a variety of shapes can be observed, such as loops, spirals, coils, wavy lines, and straight lines. 33 By controlling the spinning speed of each syringe to adjust the ratio of different fluorescence components, fluorescence nanofiber membranes with various colors can be prepared. When the CDs are incorporated into three different fluorescent nanofibers, a white light emission can be achieved (Fig.…”

Unclonable Features via Electrospraying of Bulk Polymers

“…Electrohydrodynamic instabilities are common in nature and also utilized in engineering applications. − Electrospinning, for example, is an effective means of generating nanoscale fibers. , The whipping instability is responsible for the random orientation of nanoscale fibers. Previous studies have shown that such nanoscale fibers can be used for encoding; − however, the continuous form of fibers poses challenges in their adaptation for generating randomly positioned discontinuous features. Electrospraying is a particularly interesting electrohydrodynamic process to generate randomly positioned isolated features.…”