| Jul 28, 2023 |
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(Nanowerk Information) Counterfeiting is a significant issue affecting a variety of industries – from medication to electronics, inflicting huge financial losses, posing security considerations and placing well being in danger.
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Counterfeiters and anti-counterfeiters at the moment are locked in a technological arms race. Regardless of anti-counterfeiting instruments changing into an increasing number of high-tech – together with holograms, thermochromic ink and radio frequency identification tags, faux merchandise have gotten tougher and tougher to inform other than the real articles as a result of counterfeiters are utilizing more and more superior know-how.
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Not too long ago, a staff of researchers led by Dr Zhiqin Chu of the Division of Electrical and Digital Engineering of the College of Hong Kong (HKU), along with Professor Lei Shao of the Faculty of Electronics and Data Know-how of Solar Yat-sen College, and Professor Qi Wang from Dongguan Institute of Opto-Electronics of Peking College developed a pioneering technological answer that counterfeiters don’t have any response to.
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Dr Chu’s staff created diamond-based anti-counterfeiting labels which can be distinctive and recognized within the trade as PUFs – Bodily Unclonable Capabilities. They reported their findings in Nature Communications (“Multimodal dynamic and unclonable anti-counterfeiting utilizing sturdy diamond microparticles on heterogeneous substrate”).
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| a {A photograph} of the diamond PUFs fabricated on a 2-inch Si wafer. b Prime-view scanning electron microscopy (SEM), c 45°-view SEM, and d cross-sectional SEM pictures of the fabricated diamond microparticles on the Si substrate. The particle dimension distribution of the diamond microparticles is proven in (b) (Picture: The College of Hong Kong)
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The staff made these labels by planting tiny synthetic diamonds – generally known as diamond microparticles, on a silicon plate utilizing a technique known as Chemical Vapour Deposition (CVD).
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The diamond microparticles, all totally different in form and dimension, type a novel sample after they scatter on the silicon substrate. Such sample is unimaginable to copy and subsequently scatters mild in a novel method. Put merely, it types a novel “fingerprint” than could be scanned utilizing a telephone.
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The second stage of uniqueness, and therefore safety, comes from the truth that these diamond microparticles have defects generally known as silicon-vacancy (SiV) facilities.
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SiVs give diamond microparticles a novel optical property – they emit near-infrared photoluminescence when a inexperienced mild is shone on them, which makes them simply identifiable. These distinctive optic signatures can then be mixed and digitized into codes of very excessive sophistication and safety that may be learn by a easy smartphone scanner and/or a confocal fluorescence microscope.
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Very importantly, these diamond-based labels are extremely appropriate for the use in business merchandise as they’re extraordinarily robust – within the trials they withstood warmth, the motion of chemical substances and bodily harm.
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And, they’re low cost – it prices only one US greenback to make 10,000 such labels of 200 µm × 200 µm dimensions. Furthermore, as a result of they’re produced from diamonds, these anti-copying labels would improve the worth of the product.
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The labels are prepared for use commercially, says Dr Chu, including that the staff’s subsequent step is “to give attention to the sensible utility.”
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“Diamond anti-counterfeiting can be favoured in numerous high-end merchandise reminiscent of jewelry, luxurious items, digital merchandise, and vehicles,” he stated.
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