No More Counterfeited Goods (NoFAKES)

A high-tech authenticity verification system based on unique microscopic spheres of liquid crystals to create invisibile, secure, and tamper-proof tags.

The project at a glance

Start date:

01 Jun 2021
Duration in months:

24
Funding:

FNR
Principal Investigator(s):

Prof. Gabriele Lenzini

About

NoFAKES focuses on the development of an authentication technology based on algorithms to capture, extract, and process information encoded in Cholesteric Spherical Reflectors (CSRs). These produce unpredictable and unique optical reflection patterns when layered on transparent and flat surfaces, which can be used to create secure, tamper-proof tags. Technologies offering such unclonable properties are envisioned for a wide range of applications, including verifying the authenticity of objects, identification protocols, access control, electronic document management, and much more. In a nutshell, CSR tags can potentially be used for anti-counterfeit purposes because of their fingerprint-like attributes. In fact, both the extraction of robust information, as well as the use of authentication protocols, are key components to defining the authenticity of an object. The NoFAKES project is the result of a close collaboration of the IRiSC research group at the Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust (SnT) and the Experimental Soft Matter Physics group from the Physics & Materials Science Research Unit at the University of Luxembourg. The research team has also established industrial collaborations with companies interested in implementing anti-counterfeiting technologies, as well as others that already use some anti-counterfeiting technologies, but would like to test novel solutions.

Website