Dual‐State Programmable Oxide Transistor for Time‐Based Cryptography

Abstract

ABSTRACT As conventional digital computing becomes increasingly constrained by scalability and energy‐efficiency limits, computing based on intrinsic physical dynamics of devices has emerged as a promising alternative. In this context, three‐terminal devices have attracted attention because their additional terminal offers greater flexibility for implementing higher‐order dynamics than two‐terminal devices. Here, we present a dual‐state programmable oxide transistor (DUPOT) that exhibits a previously unreported form of high‐dimensional dynamical behavior with both the threshold voltage (V th) and the saturation current (I sat) independently tunable. Additionally, the programmed V th state exhibits long‐term memory (LTM) characteristics, whereas the I sat state shows short‐term memory (STM) behavior, enabling more complex computing functionalities. We elucidate its operating mechanisms and demonstrate robustness, and further showcase its use in time‐based cryptography, which fully exploits its rich dynamical behavior. Our array‐level demonstration supports diverse forms of time‐based cryptography, including time‐release encryption and time‐bound encryption, and can be extended to cloud cryptographic systems, marking a new milestone in the study of computing devices with higher‐order dynamics.