Modern anti-counterfeiting features on banknotes are getting more sophisticated, ranging from complex and colourful watermarks to holograms and foil strips. Now Ute Zschieschang of the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart, Germany, and her colleagues have added yet another weapon to the arsenal: trackable digital circuits.
The researchers fabricated low-voltage organic transistors on the surface of a €5 note (pictured), using a 3-nanometre-thick insulating layer made of aluminium oxide and octadecylphosphonic acid that could be deposited without damaging the surface of the banknote. A total of 92% of the deposited transistors were functional — a high enough proportion for the circuits to work reliably.
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Organic electronics: Currency circuitry. Nature 468, 871 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/468871c
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/468871c
