Globally, the trade of counterfeit goods has an estimated economic impact upwards of $USD 1.7 trillion annually as reported by the Business Action to Stop Counterfeiting and Piracy (BASCP). Counterfeit goods are pervasive across an array of markets, including apparel, currency, fuels, automotive components, pharmaceuticals, and microelectronics. In addition to the economic fallout from brand protection concerns, counterfeit goods in the latter two categories can have severe adverse secondary effects. For example, counterfeit pharmaceuticals have been coined ‘‘murder by medicine’’ as they pose public health risks. Additionally, counterfeit microelectronics have been both found in the supply chain of and deployed in critical devices resulting in, for example, the failure of a communications satellite. Collectively, these adverse economic, device reliability, and health effects of counterfeit goods create a great demand for anti-counterfeit approaches. We present such an approach by demonstrating that the far-field scattering of randomly deposited colloidal nanocrystals (NCs) serve as a physically unclonable optical function for anti-counterfeit applications in which the scattering patterns are easily produced yet impractical to replicate. The facile deposition method coupled with the intense scattering and optical response of metal NCs provide physically unclonable features with the ability to serve as authentication and tamper-evident labels.

Colloidal nanocrystal approach to fighting counterfeit products

2019 Fall National Meeting

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