Hybrid Memristive Silk Devices for Multilevel Information Encryption and Decryption

We report a set of programmable vanishing, hybrid memristive devices consisting of silk-based resistive switching memristors and multi-color diffractive optical elements (DOEs) for electrical and optical information encryption and decryption. The resistive switching memory (ReRAM), using naturally regenerated silk proteins as the switching layer, stores the encryption key in an electronic manner. The multichromatic diffractive optical element (MC-DOE) stores encrypted multi-level optical information in multi-color diffraction patterns. Benefiting from the superior flexibility, versatility and tunable degradability of silk, the hybrid memresistive device can degrade at pre-defined sequence and time/rate. The controllable disappearance of diffraction patterns according to the key stored in the DOE leads to the information concealment, information reappearance and information destruction, thereby expanding its applications in information encryption and anti-reverse engineering.