New Security Feature for Personal Documents

Dr. Eugenia Kumacheva has found a new and inexpensive way to stop counterfeiting.

The University of Toronto chemist has developed a technology that encrypts information, such as photographs, fingerprints and signatures, onto passports and other security documents.

 The NSERC researcher uses polymer-based nanomaterials to build layers of thin films, each housing up to eight pieces of information. The technology starts from particles with a rigid core, (a nanosphere), which is encased in somewhat softer shells. The last layer forms a matrix in the composite film. Each layer in the particles is labelled with a different dye, each sensitive to light at a particular wavelength – ultraviolet, visible or infrared. Different security information can be encrypted by photobleaching the dye localized in each layer.

Once the particles are bound together, a polymer film can be applied to any plastic card. To the naked eye, the enhanced card looks like any normal identification card. But under visible light, a photograph could appear; a signature might become visible under UV illumination; and infrared light could reveal a fingerprint.

“This technology will give security or customs officers the confidence to spot fake documents,” explains Dr. Kumacheva.

Dr. Kumacheva developed the technology with postdoctoral fellows Dr. Ilya Gourevich and Dr. Hung H. Pham and microscopist James E.N. Jonkman.

The researcher has just received one of NSERC’s new Idea to Innovation (I2I) grants, which help researchers develop technologies with the potential to be commercialized. “With the additional funding, I can hire more people and work on the proof-of-concept,” Dr. Kumacheva says.

Contact:

Dr. Eugenia Kumacheva
Tel./Fax: (416) 947-5645
E-mail: ekumache@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca
Web site: http://www.chem.utoronto.ca/staff/EK/Frame1.html