Reconfigurable Structured Surfaces for Enhanced Security Features (Bank Note)

This technology from the Aizenberg lab describes a surface that is capable of protecting physical biometric information, such as fingerprints, by stochastically reconfiguring deformable microscale and/or nanoscale surface structures through dynamic liquid wicking and drying processes. The biometric protection mechanism involves I) removal of residuals on the surface through a surface topography-induced liquid wicking process, and II) stochastic reorganization of the surface structures during wetting and drying, thereby erasing the biometric information originally retained on the surface.

Owing to the simplicity and the multi-functional nature of their invented surface, they anticipate that the reconfigurable surface (RS) can find widespread applications on equipment that require touchable surfaces, such as biometric security devices, ATM machines, cellular phones, etc. In addition, the RS is particularly useful in high security applications where physical biometric needs to be immediately removed after the information are recorded, such as fingerprint recording for customs and border protection.

Intellectual Property Status: Patent(s) Pending

4473 900 650 85 s c1

Schematics (upper panel) and electron-micrographs (lower panel) of reconfigurable surfaces (RS) in unclustered and clustered states