It can be readily implemented in mass-produced items

Jun 26, 2009 10:23 GMT  ·  By

Nano-structuring steel surfaces holographically is one of the most forgery-proof ways in the world to ensure that a product is not falsified once it leaves the production plants. And while hologram markers are already placed on a large array of products, from music CDs to cell phone batteries, none of the existing techniques is 100 percent secure. Now, researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute for Chemical Technology ICT, in Pfinztal, Germany, led by Gunter Helferich, have developed a new addition to the hologram-production process, when they have created an explosion technique that embosses the original pattern into the injection molding tool.

This protection method against plagiarism has awarded the scientist one of the 2009 Joseph von Fraunhofer prizes. His research is so important simply because counterfeit merchandise accounts for no less than ten percent of the total volume of trade in the world, which means that about one tenth of the profits that established companies should make selling their products is lost to copy-cats. But the main problem is not immediate losses, but also the damage that the brand gets in the eyes of the public.

Experts explain that, if a customer buys a fake product from a certain brand, and they are unsatisfied, then they would recommend to all of their friends not to use the product, or anything the company manufactures. If the trend picks up momentum, large international companies could soon see their very expensive, but at least of a high quality, products being replaced by cheap copies, which are of a very low quality.

“The procedure is simple to describe. For the structuring, the metal surface to be worked on is covered with the object that is to be imprinted, the original structure. A thin film of explosive material is placed on this. When this is detonated the structure of the original is imprinted, accurate in every detail, onto the metal. The shock wave causes an additional increase in the hardness of the embossed metal,” Helferich says of his new embossing method.

The main safeguard of the new system is that forgers will never be able to afford purchasing the machines that make this type of embossing possible. And even if they do, and somehow manage to get the original templates used for making the imprints, they will not be able to make the exact same type of explosion happen, such as in a specialized plant.