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Unique wrinkles as identity tags

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Spontaneously generated, random wrinkles of coatings on microscale particles have been found to be analogous to fingerprints — unique patterns with a wavy topography that can serve as unclonable tags for anti-counterfeiting purposes.

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Figure 1: Similarities between fingerprints and surface wrinkle patterns of microscale particles.
Figure 2: Sensitivity of wrinkle patterns in films to geometrical imperfections.

Jie Yin & Mary C. Boyce

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Jie Yin is in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and at the Temple Materials Institute, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19122, USA.,

    Jie Yin

  2. Mary C. Boyce is in the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science, Columbia University, New York, New York 10027, USA.,

    Mary C. Boyce

Authors
  1. Jie Yin
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  2. Mary C. Boyce
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Correspondence to Jie Yin or Mary C. Boyce.

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Yin, J., Boyce, M. Unique wrinkles as identity tags. Nature 520, 164–165 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature14380

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