Secure authentication via Quantum Physical Unclonable Functions: a review

TL;DR

This review discusses Quantum Physical Unclonable Functions (QPUFs), their theoretical basis, implementation challenges, and evolution, highlighting their potential for secure authentication and the current open challenges in practical deployment.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of QPUF architectures, distinguishes them from QR-PUFs, and analyzes their theoretical and practical challenges for secure authentication.

Findings

QPUFs extend classical PUF capabilities with quantum principles.

Implementation challenges include quantum memories and randomness.

Achieving practical, robust QPUF-based authentication remains unresolved.

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.