Optical security labels play a significant role in protecting both our wealth and health. However, simultaneously meeting the requirements including low-cost fabrication, easy detection, and high-level security is still challenging for security labels. Here, we design an unclonable anti-counterfeiting system with triple-level security by using the inkjet printing technique, which can be authenticated by naked eyes, a portable microscope, and a fluorescence microscope. These labels are achieved by printing microscale quantum dot (QD) ink droplets on premodified substrates with random-distributed glass microspheres. Due to the unique capillary action induced by the glass microspheres, QDs in the ink droplets are deposited around the microspheres, forming microscale multicircular patterns. Multiple pinning of QDs at the three-phase contact lines appears during the evaporation of the droplet, resulting in the formation of a nanoscale labyrinthine pattern around the microspheres. The nanoscale labyrinth pattern and the microscale multicircular microsphere array, together with the printed macroscopic image, constitute a triple-level progressive anti-counterfeiting system. Moreover, the system is compatible with an artificial intelligence-based identification strategy that allows rapid identification and verification of the unclonable security labels.
Keywords: anti-counterfeiting; inkjet printing; labyrinth pattern; physical unclonable function; quantum dots.