Researchers at Northwestern University have developed a method to use nanoscale disk arrays as powerful encoding devices that can be dispersed in a variety of materials for both security and sensing applications. These Nanodisk Codes (NDCs) are made using a process called “On-Wire Lithography” which can create a linear series of disk pairs, each with a tiny gap. These disk pairs amplify molecular signals so that the NDC can be read out both by counting the number of disks along an individual array or by identify the chemical signal broadcast from and amplified by the disk pair. It is possible to make billions of unique codes simply by increasing the number of disk pairs and/or type of molecular signal.
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