Secure authentication via Quantum Physical Unclonable Functions: a review
Pol Julià Farré, Vladlen Galetsky, Mohamed Belhassen, Gregor Pieplow, Kumar Nilesh, Holger Boche, Tim Schröder, Janis Nötzel, Christian Deppe
TL;DR
QPUFs offer a quantum framework for secure authentication, aiming to extend classical PUF concepts with unitary or near-unitary transformations. The review contrasts QPUFs with QR-PUFs, surveys theoretical foundations, implementation challenges (notably quantum memories and Haar randomness), and analyzes information-theoretic security. It covers the evolution from QR-PUFs to QPUFs and Hybrid PUFs, evaluating one-shot vs multi-shot verification, ideal vs measurement-based approaches, and the role of randomness in security proofs. The work highlights the need for standardization, architecture-agnostic benchmarks, and cross-platform integration to translate strong theoretical guarantees into practical, scalable quantum-secure authentication solutions.
Abstract
Quantum Physical Unclonable Functions (QPUFs) offer a physically grounded approach to secure authentication, extending the capabilities of classical PUFs. This review covers their theoretical foundations and key implementation challenges - such as quantum memories and Haar-randomness -, and distinguishes QPUFs from Quantum Readout PUFs (QR-PUFs), more experimentally accessible yet less robust against quantum-capable adversaries. A co-citation-based selection method is employed to trace the evolution of QPUF architectures, from early QR-PUFs to more recent Hybrid PUFs (HPUFs). This method further supports a discussion on the role of information-theoretic analysis in mitigating inconsistencies in QPUF responses, underscoring the deep connection between secret-key generation and authentication. Despite notable advances, achieving practical and robust QPUF-based authentication remains an open challenge.