It has long been known that counterfeit goods have flooded practically almost every consumer market in the world, but scientists have now developed a stamping method, known as atomic fingerprinting, that one day might stamp them out for good.
Counterfeiting costs the global economy some $500 billion per year and is a problem that’s vast in scale, but the new anti-counterfeiting method being developed at Cornell University has the potential to change everything.
The method entails intentionally fabricating flaws into an atom-thin layer of material, such as graphene oxide, which is woven into an item such as a piece of clothing. For example, a carbon atom can be removed, or an oxygen atom can be added to create a unique pattern.
When that has been done, the material is added to an ink that’s used for printing a hologram onto an item. The presence of the atomic pattern can be identified by using a smartphone camera and its built-in flash to photograph the label.
The atoms in the “atomic fingerprint” are excited by the camera’s flash. They produce a unique color based on the pattern that was created and, the taken image can easily be analyzed using a smartphone app in order to confirm an item’s authenticity.
Seeing as counterfeiting is such a huge problem, solutions to it need to be easily adoptable by larger numbers of people. The technology’s developers are already working with a company that could print no less than 10 billion atomic fingerprints, and say that their very first application could be in the automotive industry.
They added that they expected their first products to come to market early next year, and will be working with the pharmaceutical industry to tackle the problem of counterfeit drugs. As I’m sure you can imagine, the applications for this new technology are virtually limitless, so counterfeit goods may well become a thing of the past in the future.
Content and image source: LiveScience
Second image by Deposit Photos.
