Luminescent materials, based on rare earths, fluorescent organic pigments and classical upconverting compounds, are well established in the security document industry. However, the use of these materials for new innovative machine-readable security features is rare due to limitations and constraints such as manufacturing reproducibility, chemical robustness, particle size limitations due to printing processes, scalability, luminescence efficiency and other physical properties.

New machine-readable luminescent materials with unique characteristics are difficult to develop as compared to what is established in the market. This is due to the banknote cash cycle having many constraints in terms of readability through a wide variety of cash processing machines.

SICPA has demonstrated many years of expertise in the development of high-quality pigments, inks, and authentication platforms, which today secure a plethora of security documents. This presentation represents the next chapter in SICPA’s luminescent features. A set of innovative machine-readable security features using new emerging materials such as quantum dots, metal-clusters, and halide perovskites exhibiting highly tuneable spectral properties, along with their authentication platforms are presented.

We will illustrate how these luminescent features can be made compatible with the demanding technical requirements of the security industry and specifically the machines and detectors used in the cash cycle.