Security ink based on nano-materials that spontaneously emits light can combat counterfeiting

What is the News?

Indian Scientists have indigenously developed a highly stable and non-toxic luminescent security ink from nano-materials that will help combat counterfeiting of currency notes, medicine, certificates, documents and branded goods.

What is Counterfeiting?

Counterfeiting means to imitate something authentic with the intent to steal, destroy or replace the original for use in illegal transactions.

Counterfeiting of branded goods, banknotes, medicines, certificates, currency and other important documents is very common all over the world.

How is counterfeiting tackled currently?

Currently, Luminescent ink is used as covert tags to combat counterfeiting.

Most of the security inks available today are based on luminescent materials that absorb a high-energy photon and emit low-energy photons, technically called downshifting. This covert tag is invisible under daylight, and it becomes visible under UV light.  However, these single emission-based tags are prone to replication. 

To overcome this, luminescent ink with excitation-dependent luminescent properties (downshifting and upconversion) is advised. 

This is because increasing the number of parameters required to decode the tag decreases the possibility of decoding and replication.  

However, most of the materials reported recently for this purpose are based on fluorides, which are less stable and highly toxic.

What have the Indian Scientists developed?

To address the above challenge, Indian Scientists have developed a luminescent security ink from nano-materials. This ink is highly stable, less toxic and has excitation-dependent luminescent properties.

Hence, this ink has huge potential to combat counterfeiting and the common man can find out easily whether the document or product is original or fake.

Source: This post is based on the article “Security ink based on nano-materials that spontaneously emits light can combat counterfeiting” published in PIB on 25th October 2021.