The security printing industry struggles continuously to outwit counterfeiters employing measures that are difficult to reproduce without special knowledge, resources, and equipment. Although fluorescent inks have emerged as powerful anti-counterfeiting technologies, we lack methods for creating high-security features such as real-time color tuning. We have developed a fluorescent ink by installing large rings around fluorophores by means of the cooperative capture synthesis.1-3 This system’s complex equilibria, rapidly tunable solid-state fluorescence, and non-linear response to ink concentrations lay the foundations of a strategy for encrypting images that are difficult to reproduce, even given access to the ink’s components. Not only is this modular system reversible, it is also complemented by simple chemical authentication protocols. These attributes set this system apart from conventional fluorophores and render it appealing for applications in high-security protection technologies. References: 1. Ke, C.; Smaldone, R. A.; Kikuchi, T.; Li, H.; Davis, A. P.; Stoddart, J. F., Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2013, 52, 381-387. 2. Ke, C.; Strutt, N. L.; Li, H.; Hou, X.; Hartlieb, K. J.; McGonigal, P. R.; Ma, Z.; Iehl, J.; Stern, C. L.; Cheng, C.; Zhu, Z.; Vermeulen, N. A.; Meade, T. J.; Botros, Y. Y.; Stoddart, J. F., J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2013, 135, 17019-17030. 3. Hou, X.; Ke, C.; Cheng, C.; Song, N.; Blackburn, A. K.; Sarjeant, A. A.; Botros, Y. Y.; Yang, Y.-W.; Stoddart, J. F., Chem. Commun. 2014, 50, 6196-6199.

Tunable solid state fluorescent materials for supramolecular encryption

249th National Meeting (2015)

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