Safety-critical parts
Counterfeit parts and swapped chips create risk no OEM can accept. NovaVera gives the part, the alloy and the circuit board an identity that stays with it from the factory to the field and through every service.
Recycled or fake chips arrive without anyone noticing, and replacement parts change hands many times before installation. Serial numbers and labels can be copied or moved, and a part may be reworked between inspections.
Crystals go into the powder coating on wheels, calipers and brackets, the alloy, the molded housing or the conformal coating that already protects circuit boards. With LightMap™, one coat gives every component its own random fingerprint; a swapped chip or reworked joint leaves a visible hole in the map.
Practical applications
Powder coatings
Wheels, brake calipers, brackets, springs and frames leave the factory powder-coated. NovaVera blends the crystals into the powder itself, so the identity goes on in the same spray, survives the cure oven, and reads on the finished part for its whole service life. A counterfeit or an aftermarket copy in the same color reads blank.
LightMap™ for electronics
Mix Intelligent Material into the conformal coating that already protects circuit boards and spray it on. Each component gets its own random LightMap™, and the whole board gets one too. Replace a chip or rework a joint and that patch of the map goes dark.
Metals
Stamps wear off, serial numbers get machined away, and everything is lost when metal is melted and recast. So we put the identity in the alloy itself, where it survives casting, rolling, machining and recycling.
The producer enriches its alloys with Intelligent Material. When scrap returns, measuring the crystal tells them where the metal came from and how much of it is their own recycled content, and flags dilution or substitution.
Different crystals mark different product lines, so the same check separates structural from non-structural alloys, and lower-carbon from standard metal.
Protecting the optical core
Molten metal is hard on a tiny optical crystal. Heat alone isn't the problem; our crystals are thermally stable far above aluminum's melting point. The melt is also chemically aggressive, can pull particles into the dross, and can dim the glow at the crystal's surface.
So for metals the crystal is built in two parts. An optical core carries the code. A protective refractory shell wraps it, taking the contact with the melt while letting the reader's light through in both directions. The core stays readable after casting and remelting.
The reader looks at the glow after its light switches off, so the shine of bare metal and room light don't confuse it.
Plastics
Crystals are compounded into a masterbatch, the concentrated pellets molders already use for color and additives. Let the masterbatch down on a normal molding or extrusion line and every part carries the code from the first shot. Nothing is printed, attached or peeled off.
Illustration. Signal strength scales with the amount of crystal, so the same reader that says "genuine" can also say "how much".
Also in inks, varnishes, waxes, coatings, fibers and metals. Typical loadings are around 1 part per million in a bottle or label varnish.
Related industries
Ready to evaluate NovaVera for Automotive & Aerospace Parts? We work directly with technical evaluators and procurement teams, from the first sample to full production.
Tell us what you need to protect in automotive & aerospace parts, where it is made and who needs to check it. We reply within two business days.