Researchers at Western University in London, Ontario have used the Canadian Light Source on the USask campus to further their work on developing a new approach to hinder counterfeiters.

A chemistry professor at Western University explains that luminescent materials currently used become visible when exposed to UV light, but they stop glowing when the light source is removed.

New materials from this research team remain visible to the human eye for several minutes after the UV light is turned off and they also give off a shade of red light that’s not easily reproduced, and an identification mark can be “programmed” to disappear in stages, while other elements fade away over the course of minutes.

The data collected from this research comes from the Canadian Light Source.