Pepijn W.H. Pinkse: HgTe as a topological insulator
When: | Fr 16-09-2016 11:00 - 12:00 |
Where: | 5118.-156 |
Modern society strongly relies on secret information for authentication. However, keeping information secret and accessible is exceedingly difficult in modern society. We have experimentally demonstrated Quantum-Secure Authentication (QSA) that does not require keeping secret information but relies on an optical Physical Unclonable Function (PUF) as a key [1]. As illustrated in the figure, we illuminate the key using light containing fewer photons than spatial degrees of freedom. In the key the photons are multiple-scattered by millions of randomly organized nanoparticles. The spatial shape of the returned (“response”) photons depends strongly on the positions of the scatterers and on the incident (“challenge”) photons. Assuming its challenge-response behavior is known, the key can be authenticated by illuminating it with a challenge and verifying whether the response is as expected. Because of the low photon number, an attacker cannot fully characterize the challenge. Therefore, he cannot digitally construct the correct response even if the challenge-response behavior of the key is publicly known. QSA is secure if the physical key is too complex to be copied with current technology, as is believed to be the case for e.g. white paint.