Artificial diamonds used to create anti-counterfeit labels
Counterfeiting is a serious problem affecting a wide range of industries — from medicine to electronics — with counterfeiters using increasingly advanced technology that makes it harder and harder to tell fake products apart from the real thing. Now a team led by Dr Zhiqin Chu from The University of Hong Kong has developed a pioneering technological solution that counterfeiters have no response to.
Chu’s team has created diamond-based anti-counterfeiting labels that are known in the industry as physically unclonable functions (PUFs). The team made these labels by planting tiny artificial diamonds, known as diamond microparticles, on a silicon plate using a method called chemical vapour deposition.
The diamond microparticles, all different in shape and size, form a unique pattern when they scatter on the silicon substrate and also scatter light in a unique way. This effectively results in a ‘fingerprint’ that can be scanned using a phone and is impossible to replicate.
The second level of security comes from the fact that these diamond microparticles have defects known as silicon-vacancy centres. These give diamond microparticles a unique optical property — they emit near-infrared photoluminescence when a green light is shone on them, which makes them easily identifiable. These optical signatures can then be combined and digitised into codes of high sophistication and security that can be read by a simple smartphone scanner and/or confocal fluorescence microscope.
The diamond-based labels have been deemed highly suitable for use in commercial products, as they are extremely tough — in the trials they withstood heat, the action of chemicals and physical damage. They are also very cheap — it costs just US$1 to make 10,000 such labels measuring 200 x 200 µm. Moreover, because they are made from diamonds, the labels would enhance the value of the product.
With the researchers’ results now published in the journal Nature Communications, Chu believes the labels are ready to be used commercially, stating that the team’s next step is “to focus on the practical application”.
“Diamond anti-counterfeiting will be favoured in various high-end products such as jewellery, luxury goods, electronic products and automobiles,” he said.
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