10-10/11 :: October/November 2010

nanotimes News in Brief

Elsevier announced the launch of SciVerse, an in- novative platform that integrates the company’s key products and encourages the scientific community to collaborate on the development of customized search and discovery applications. Elsevier has com- mitted to releasing the APIs (application program- ming interfaces) for all of the content on SciVerse and will offer application development support tools on the site. http://www.info.sciverse.com

A team of German researchers from four Fraunhofer Institutes recently engineered a brand new process that is particularly forgery-proof: “We add various fluorescing dyes to the entire material,” explains Dr. Andreas Holländer of the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Polymer Research IAP. “With the aid of the fluorescence, we can precisely ascertain specific characteristics, and thereby recognize if we are de- aling with the original, and if the quality standards have been met.”

Fluorescence can be found in certain organic dyes: Irradiate them within a certain wave length range, and they emit their own light with a greater wave- length. The type of luminosity – i.e., wavelength and light intensity – depends on the physical and chemical properties of the materials to which the dye was applied. Various dyes react to different properties, such as pH value or viscosity. For exam- ple, a certain dye glows in a tightly-interlaced resin more strongly than in one that is not as dense.

To make a product counterfeit-proof, the resear- chers therefore add multiple dyes to the material. “In this manner, an individualized marker emerges that is exceedingly difficult to imitate,” says Hollän-

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der. Thanks to the slight dosing, it is virtually im- possible to decode the type and quantity of the dye additives: just a few ppb (parts per billion) of dye concentrates suffice to mark the material. Another advantage: The counterfeit protection definitely cannot be removed.

“Using conventional security features, the spot with the labeling can be eliminated from the material, theoretically speaking. But that approach doesn‘t work with our technology, since the dye permeates the entire material, and itself is a component of the identification label,” says Holländer.

The new technology has already passed the first practice tests: Researchers marked barrier sheets for organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) and photovol- taics with dyes a development from the Fraunhofer Polymer Surfaces Alliance POLO.

Dr. rer. nat. Andreas Holländer, Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Polymer Research, Phone: +49 331 568-1404; Nadine Gruber, Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Polymer Research: http://www.polo.fraunhofer.de/en/index.html

http://www.iap.fraunhofer.de/fb2/oberflaechen.html

The Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE in Freiburg, Germany, has taken its megawatt laboratory for PV inverters into operation. It is the first and currently the only laboratory in Europe where manufacturers can commission certification, in accordance with the medium-voltage grid codes that have applied since July 1st 2010, of inverters with a power rating of up to one megawatt.