Swiss researchers combine previous techniques to create new security pattern.
The researchers from École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), or the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, shared their method of miniaturized authentication, whereby moiré and microlithography techniques have been combined for a system that can be easily recognized and “impossible to reproduce through currently existing printer or scanner technology”.
The institute notes that the “fight against forgeries is far from over”, and that even though there has been a “wide diversification” of measures, “technological advances in scanning and printing” have contrived to “simplify the manufacture” of many types of forgery, and by combining the two techniques, the EPFL researchers believe the images created are “virtually impossible to reproduce”.
The technique, published in Light, a magazine dedicated to optics research, was masterminded by professors Roger D. Hersch and Jürgen Brügger, with microlithography (circuit manufacturing through engraving on a micrometer scale) and moiré patterns (a visual phenomenon caused by interference between light and dark) combined in a small image “that offers an interesting alternative to holograms”, which are currently “relatively easy” to reproduce.
The moiré patterning, which can often be seen when a striped shirt is viewed on a television, has been replicated and controlled by the researchers, who can now create the patterns with designs and letters, which would be “undetectable” if the layers are not placed upon one another. With the images able to be verified by the naked eye, technology such as lamps or infrared beams are not required to test authenticity.
Brugger stated: “We have developed a protocol for complex manufacturing, which requires extreme precision in terms of the diameter, curvature and casting of the lenses. In this way, such patterns are simply impossible to imitate through traditional printing systems.”
You can view a video of the technology below. The Recycler recently reported on another new technology manufactured by scientists to aid in the fight against counterfeiting on a global level.