Dr Zhiqin Chu of the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering and his team had worked on the research for the topic “Multimodal dynamic and unclonable anti-counterfeiting using robust diamond microparticles on heterogeneous substrate”. The research was recently published by Nature Communications on May 2, 2023.
Details of the publication:
Multimodal dynamic and unclonable anti-counterfeiting using robust diamond microparticles on heterogeneous substrate
Tongtong Zhang, Lingzhi Wang, Jing Wang, Zhongqiang Wang, Madhav Gupta, Xuyun Guo, Ye Zhu, Yau Chuen Yiu, Tony K. C. Hui, Yan Zhou, Can Li, Dangyuan Lei, Kwai Hei Li, Xinqiang Wang, Qi Wang, Lei Shao & Zhiqin Chu, Article in Nature Communications,
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-38178-1#Sec1
Abstract:
The growing prevalence of counterfeit products worldwide poses serious threats to economic security and human health. Developing advanced anti-counterfeiting materials with physical unclonable functions offers an attractive defense strategy. Here, we report multimodal, dynamic and unclonable anti-counterfeiting labels based on diamond microparticles containing silicon-vacancy centers. These chaotic microparticles are heterogeneously grown on silicon substrate by chemical vapor deposition, facilitating low-cost scalable fabrication. The intrinsically unclonable functions are introduced by the randomized features of each particle. The highly stable signals of photoluminescence from silicon-vacancy centers and light scattering from diamond microparticles can enable high-capacity optical encoding. Moreover, time-dependent encoding is achieved by modulating photoluminescence signals of silicon-vacancy centers via air oxidation. Exploiting the robustness of diamond, the developed labels exhibit ultrahigh stability in extreme application scenarios, including harsh chemical environments, high temperature, mechanical abrasion, and ultraviolet irradiation. Hence, our proposed system can be practically applied immediately as anti-counterfeiting labels in diverse fields.