Low cost product authentication for counterfeit protection

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Losses due to counterfeiting of products are estimated to be $1 trillion annually worldwide.  Despite this, the market for authentication products is quite small. This is partly due to the lack of fully satisfactory methods for making and reading authentication tags. There are no labels in widespread use. We have recently developed a micro-magnetometer which is at the same time highly sensitive and inexpensive. We have demonstrated its ability to distinguish simple tags from different sources. For this purpose, we use changes in both the fundamental and second harmonic giant magnetoimpedence signals. We have also been conducting theoretical and experimental studies of the second harmonic signal and of noise in the fundamental. We propose here the development of a novel digital tag, which should also be inexpensive, and which can store considerable information, difficult to counterfeit, in a small piece of soft magnetic ribbon or microwire, and which can be read using the micro-magnetometer, which will be optimized for reading of the second harmonic signal. This second-generation tag could provide an important market opportunity.