Overcoming the Problem of Weak Fluorescent Radiation

The first thing is to make the Ln+3 ions be well seated on the nanoparticles or graphene matrix. You want the Zirconia, or silicate particle to reticulate the Ln+3 ion such that the substrate acts as an antenna bringing primary photons from the LEDs to the fluorescent ion.

Beyond that, you want the LED light to be in the UV range 250 nm to 450 nm. You want Lyman series emissions to be included, along with possible Balmer series (visible) and Paschen series (infra red) as secondary photons coming off the Ln+3 ions.

Any medium will reduce the intensity of the secondary photons. Air is bad, water is worse, and glass is very bad. Some of your photons are converted into heat unless they travel only through vacuum.

My authentication machine does not contain vacuum. So I am stuck with the losses that happen by passage through air. I design the path so that there is no passage through glass except for the small amount of glass that makes up the seal. This convexo-convex lens over the Ln+3 ions can be quite thin, but since the seal itself is made of glass, it has to be there.

Getting the secondary photons to the sensors can be done by two polished Gold mirrors, one at 45 degree angle above the seal, and a second one at 45 degree angle to take the laterally moving photons and make them go down to the sensors located side by side but not adjacent to the location of the seal. The photons go up from the seal, hit one mirror that sends them over to another mirror that send them down to the sensors that are on the same plane as the seal, and next to it, but at some lateral distance away.

The photons travel through air mostly, with just a tiny bit of glass, and they get from the seal to the sensors by means of two mirrors that are 99% reflective and convert very little of the photons intensity (energy) into heat.

The sensors are astronomy-grade charge coupled detectors that will register as counts few and weak scintillations coming in as fluorescent light. A few tens of millions of secondary photons will be detected and passed on to the transducer which converts from analog to digital and makes a digitized waveform of what it receives.

This waveform is then arrayed in the Optical Digital Spectrum Analyzer that organizes it into a peaks profile monotonic curve, with the signature peaks at the locations that match the Ln+3 ions in their variety, and at their molar concentrations, and with the heat treatments they have received (scintering, microwave baking, annealing, etc). Each of the various heat treatments will affect the peaks profile to some degree. The molar concentration of the Ln+3 has a major impact. The seating of the ion in the crystal or on the graphene matrix also affects the outcome. And there are other factors such as upconversion and quenching that shape the peaks profile.

Upconversion is rare. Quenching is quite common. And the energy shift tends to be downward per Stokes downconversion effect.

The computer takes the orderly peaks profile, and the file number off the document or item, and just compares that peaks profile to a previously recorded and stored peaks profile on file for that specific document (bank bill) or item (art object). To be rated “authentic” the document or item must present a 95% match. If there were more time a 99% match would be possible, but it’s not commercially possible. The machine must be able to assess many bank bills very fast, so the load can be cleared, and business is not delayed.

The primary photons that shine onto the seal come from a wall-like structure around and above the seal, and 9 LED’s that all shine simulataneously on the same circle of illumination which is where the seal is brought it, and then moved away from. 1 second per document or item is about what will be needed, mostly on account of the speed limitations of the conveyor belt that brings the seals into the circle of light.

All the frequencies 200 nm to 1500 nm hit the seal at the same time. It yields what it yields, and we know what that looks like. We have it on file in the authentication machine, on an application specific integrate circuit, that is built for speed (reduced instruction set).

Every item is a one-time pad. We can identify what we made. We know what it is supposed to look like. The data coming to the computer must go through checkpoints inside the machine. The machine contains no communication circuits. It does not connect to the internet, the smartphone, the blockchain, radio, or blue tooth. Fake data from malefactors has no pathway get to the computer.