Simulation of Si nanowire quantum-dot devices for authentication

This paper shows quantum mechanical simulations of quantum-dots (QDs) embedded within Si nanowires. To capture the effect of statistical sources of variability, we simulated 60 wires with differing numbers and positions of dopants, not only in the quantum dot but also at the source and the drain regions also. Our work shows that the specific number of dopants and their positions give rise to unique current-voltage characteristics, providing unique signatures for use as the basis of physical unclonable functions (PUFs). Adoption of hardware security devices for authentication is on the rise; the technology proposed here delivers a practical means to extract fingerprints from quantum confined systems that could provide robust security to silicon electronics. © 2019 IEEE