Solvent-triggered reconfiguration of optical physical unclonable functions

Optical physical unclonable functions provide artificial fingerprints through randomized light-matter interactions, but are limited by static architectures that lack adaptive defense capabilities. Although reconfigurable optical physical unclonable functions based on phase-change materials have been proposed to overcome this constraint, their reliance on light or heat makes them susceptible to unintended environmental activation. Here, we propose a solvent-triggered reconfiguration strategy for optical physical unclonable functions based on polymeric microcube arrays confined within square microwells while retaining translational and rotational degrees of freedom. A volatile solvent induces swelling that establishes wall-cube contact; evaporation-driven detachment drives non-deterministic rearrangement into new spatial configurations, regenerating the optical fingerprint. A machine-learn…