High-security authentication labels

PI: Angus Kirkland

Department: Materials

Authentication labels are widely encountered in everyday life. They can be seen, for example, in bank notes and passports. As technology of security labels develops in incremental steps based on well-established holography concepts, this leaves a possibility for counterfeiters to catch up, and they often do. To defeat counterfeiters, radically new security concepts and technology are required. In this project Prof Kirkland proposes a new security concept and technology based on the phenomenon of photo-induced optical activity recently discovered in his group. This project seeks support to provide an industrially relevant validation that this new technology is robust and compatible with the existing label manufacturing technology, which can lead to fabrication of new high-security authentication labels for use in a range of markets.