Low cost product authentication for counterfeit protection

据估计，全世界每年因假冒产品造成的损失为1万亿美元。 尽管如此，认证产品的市场还是相当小的。这部分是由于缺乏完全令人满意的制作和阅读认证标签的方法。没有广泛使用的标签。我们最近开发了一种微型磁力计，它同时具有高灵敏度和廉价性。我们已经证明了它能够区分来自不同来源的简单标签。为此，我们使用的基本和二次谐波巨磁阻抗信号的变化。我们也一直在进行二次谐波信号和噪声的基本理论和实验研究。我们在这里提出了一种新的数字标签的发展，这也应该是廉价的，它可以存储相当多的信息，难以伪造，在一小块软磁性带或微丝，并可以使用微磁力计读取，这将是优化的阅读的第二谐波信号。这种第二代标签可以提供一个重要的市场机会。

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.