The research article published in the prestigious journal Nature Communications from a research group of INRiM and Politecnico di Torino marks an important step forward in the field of security and anticounterfeit.
This study, entitled “Artificial fingerprints engraved through block-copolymers as nanoscale physical unclonable functions for authentication and identification”, demonstrates the possibility to engrave fingerprints at the nanoscale thanks to nanotechnology. These fingerprints, whose morphology can be codified into binary matrices like QR-codes, are in fact unclonable and can be exploited as univocal identifiers on a wide range of materials and products.
By taking inspiration from natural forming processes of human fingerprints, the research team exploited the self-assembly process of polymeric materials to generate artificial fingerprints at the nanoscale. The uniqueness of these fingerprints is guaranteed by the inherent stochasticity of the process itself, and therefore making the fingerprint extremely hard to replicate.
«We have demonstrated that these artificial fingerprints are not only highly stable over time, but they can also withstand high temperature conditions – say Chiara Magosso and Irdi Murataj, PhD student from Politecnico di Torino and researcher from INRiM, respectively – making them suitable for numerous possible applications».
«Thanks to the development of image-based recognition algorithms – add Gianluca Milano e Federico Ferrarese Lupi, researchers from INRiM – we envision that these technologies lead to a new era in anticounterfeit that embraces the inherent stochasticity of nanoscopic self-assembly of materials».