Experimental analysis of variability in WS2-based devices for hardware security

Abstract

This work investigates the variability of tungsten disulfide (WS2)-based devices by experimental characterization in view of possible application in the field of hardware security. To this aim, a preliminary analysis was performed by measurements across voltages and temperatures on a set of seven Si/SiO2/WS2 back-gated devices, also considering the effect of different stabilization conditions on their conductivity. Obtained results show appreciable variability in the conductivity, while also revealing similar dependence on bias and temperature across tested devices. Overall, our analysis demonstrates that WS2-based devices can be potentially exploited to ensure adequate randomness and robustness against environmental variations and then used as building blocks for hardware security primitives.