Sovereign currency
Authentication built into any banknote component: substrate, ink, fiber or thread. Intrinsic to the note, impossible to separate, and readable at every verification point from the teller to the sorter.
Surface security features are the structural weakness of most currency programs. Labels, holograms, printed codes and even generic luminescent tracers can be studied over decades of public circulation, and reproduction equipment is within reach of well-resourced counterfeiters. Notes must also survive years of machine handling and still read precisely at the speed of central bank processing.
Intelligent Material® goes into the paper or polymer substrate, the printing ink or the security fiber while the note is made. It is part of the note, not stuck to it: nothing to strip, copy or source outside the certified supply chain. Readers calibrated to its optical signature are fast enough for note processing and sorting, and multiplexed signals tell denominations and batches apart on the same equipment.
Practical applications
For security reasons we do not describe how our materials are used in any specific currency today.
Where it goes
Pick a component to see how Intelligent Material® is built in, and which level of banknote security it serves: public-facing, machine-readable or forensic.
Added while the paper or polymer substrate is made, so every square millimeter of the note carries it. Nothing to strip, nothing to source outside the certified mill.
Engineered morphologies and surface chemistries let the crystal ride in banknote inks without changing how they print, feel or wear.
A thread can carry several crystals at once, so one feature can tell denominations and print batches apart on the same sorter.
Fibers carrying crystals are scattered through the paper. Their random positions can also be captured as a LightMap™.
Illustration of a generic specimen note. For security reasons we do not describe how our materials are used in any specific currency.
Inks and varnishes
The crystals are sub-micron and chemically inert, so they disperse into the inks and coatings a printer already runs, at very low loadings. The artwork, the press and the speed stay the same. Pick a process to see where the crystal rides.
NovaVera can supply Intelligent Material in almost any commercial ink or varnish, for any printing process, and compounded into standard plastic pellets. Printers and molders keep working with the products and suppliers they know; the crystal arrives already inside.
Also flexographic and pad printing, the method used for marks on eyewear frames.
Related industries
Ready to evaluate NovaVera for Banknotes? We work directly with technical evaluators and procurement teams, from the first sample to full production.
Tell us what you need to protect in banknotes, where it is made and who needs to check it. We reply within two business days.