Illuminating Advances in Materials: Optical Physical Unclonable Functions for Security Applications

A physical unclonable function (PUF) device leverages manufacturing randomness to generate a unique fingerprint for secure authentication, encryption, and counterfeit prevention. Optical PUFs (OPUFs) have gained prominence due to their strong security, light-based challenge-response mechanisms, and potential for quantum-secure encryption. These devices have promising applications for hardware security, authentication, cryptographic key generation, and anti-counterfeiting measures across multiple industries. This review enlightens the diverse material platforms used for OPUFs, ranging from fiber optics and liquid crystals to advanced semiconductor nanocrystals and plasmonic metasurfaces, each offering distinct optical characteristics that impact security strength. While no single material system dominates the field, hybrid and multi-model approaches integrating low-dimensional materials are being explored to enhance reliability and scalability. Finally, the challenges and future perspectives are outlined, including adaptive OPUFs architectures, utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) for challenge-response generation, and their integration into quantum communication networks, highlighting how next-generation semiconductor materials can further advance OPUFs technologies.