Counterfeiting seriously damages various industries, such as electronics and medicines, because it leads to annual global economic losses worth billions of dollars. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), counterfeit drugs generate annual sales worth 73 billion euros.
Aside from billion-dollar economic losses, counterfeiting poses risks to human health, national security, and social equity. It is also reported that 50% of counterfeit drugs are obtained through illegal online mail-order companies.
To prevent this scheme, security features have been used to mark medicine packaging in EU countries since 2019. Conventional counterfeit detection materials use inorganic components which are toxic. Aside from this, the current techniques can be easily copied after 18 months of decoding the fluorescent substance.
Creation of an Anti-Counterfeiting Fluorescent Material
At the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces (MPICI), a team of researchers developed a technology to prevent counterfeit products from being created in the future. The team was led by Dr. Felix Löffler from the Department of Biomolecular Systems and created a new approach to making non-copyable nanopatterns.
The technology consists of a thin sugar film of simple monosaccharides bombarded with a laser. As the suage caramelizes, the laser prints a random caramel pattern on a desired surface. The patterns produced are unique and show fluorescence properties with different colors under the scanner.
This method allows scientists to create any pattern they want, which they have shown using artificial fingerprints. The micro- and nanostructures produced are completely random and cannot be controlled. Dr. Löffler says they can get unique color gradations depending on the laser parameters, additives, and unique sugar pattern topography.
Dr. Löffler and his team created a nanofilm library of almost 2,000 nanopatterns. Fluorescence and topography scanning are used to independently read the sugar patterns' microstructure. The two scanning methods reveal ideal properties such as equality, reliability, and high uniqueness of the created patterns.
These properties demonstrate high randomness of the created patterns, a crucial copy protection component. In other words, the combined methods provide improved protection against counterfeiting.
Current Solutions to Counterfeiting
One of the solutions against fraudulent imitations is anti-counterfeiting labels in the form of optical security devices such as fluorescent holograms. These include organic dyes, semiconductor quantum dots, and carbon dots (CDs). Among these devices, CD stands out due to their low toxicity, stability, precursor, and eco-friendly preparation availability.
However, CDs only show fluorescence in solution. Hence, they can suffer from stacking and quenching while in a solid state. They can also show spectral shifts with obvious concentration that depends on luminescence properties.
Recently, the security level of optical anti-counterfeiting labels has been improved by implementing multiple operation modes. Experts apply encryption by physical unclonable functions (PUFs) like recognizable macropatterns with random microstructure. In spite of the high levels of security provided by PUF patterns, they still require exhausting fabrication, which prevents them from demonstrating the practical application.
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