title: Physically unclonable cryptographic primitives using self-assembled carbon nanotubes.
abstract: Information security underpins many aspects of modern society. However, silicon chips are vulnerable to hazards such as counterfeiting, tampering and information leakage through side-channel attacks (for example, by measuring power consumption, timing or electromagnetic radiation). Single-walled carbon nanotubes are a potential replacement for silicon as the channel material of transistors due to their superb electrical properties and intrinsic ultrathin body, but problems such as limited semiconducting purity and non-ideal assembly still need to be addressed before they can deliver high-performance electronics. Here, we show that by using these inherent imperfections, an unclonable electronic random structure can be constructed at low cost from carbon nanotubes. The nanotubes are self-assembled into patterned HfO2 trenches using ion-exchange chemistry, and the width of the trench is optimized to maximize the randomness of the nanotube placement. With this approach, two-dimensional (2D) random bit arrays are created that can offer ternary-bit architecture by determining the connection yield and switching type of the nanotube devices. As a result, our cryptographic keys provide a significantly higher level of security than conventional binary-bit architecture with the same key size.
authors.affiliation: College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering, State University of New York at Albany, Albany, New York 12203, USA.
authors.forename: Zhaoying
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.affiliation: IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York 10598, USA.
authors.forename: Jose Miguel M Lobez
authors.initials: JMML
authors.lastname: Comeras
authors.affiliation: IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York 10598, USA.|School of Electronics Engineering, Kyungpook National University, 80 Daehakro, Bukgu, Daegu 702-701, Korea.
authors.forename: Hongsik
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Park
authors.affiliation: IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York 10598, USA.
authors.forename: Jianshi
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Tang
authors.affiliation: IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York 10598, USA.
authors.forename: Ali
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Afzali
authors.affiliation: IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York 10598, USA.
authors.forename: George S
authors.initials: GS
authors.lastname: Tulevski
authors.affiliation: IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York 10598, USA.
authors.forename: James B
authors.initials: JB
authors.lastname: Hannon
authors.affiliation: College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering, State University of New York at Albany, Albany, New York 12203, USA.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Liehr
authors.affiliation: IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York 10598, USA.
authors.forename: Shu-Jen
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Han