Graphene-based micro-scale identification system
AssigneeInternational Business Machines Corporation
InventorsAlberto VALDES GARCIA, Dirk PFEIFFER, Fengnian XIA
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A system for labeling an object uses at least one object label made from a material that absorbs and reflects incident energy uniformly across all wavelengths of incident energy at a ratio proportional to a thickness of the material and that includes a pattern having variations in the thickness of the material along at least one of two orthogonal directions across the label. An interrogator directs a predetermined wavelength of radiation to the at least one label, and a reader to receives reflected radiation from the label at the predetermined wavelength and interprets the reflected radiation to recognize the pattern.
Claims20
An object label comprising:
- a material that absorbs incident energy at a ratio proportional to a thickness of the material;
- and
- a pattern comprising a unique identifier for the object label that is a unique two-dimensional pattern created by variations in the thickness of the material along at least one of two orthogonal directions across the label and that can be read by energy reflected through the object label.
A system for labeling an object, the system comprising:
- at least one object label comprising:
- a material that absorbs incident energy uniformly across all wavelengths of incident energy at a ratio proportional to a thickness of the material;
- and
- a pattern comprising a unique identifier for the object label that is a unique two-dimensional pattern created by variations in the thickness of the material along at least one of two orthogonal directions across the label;
- an interrogator to direct a predetermined wavelength of radiation to be reflected through the at least one label;
- and
- a reader to receive reflected radiation from the at least one label at the predetermined wavelength and to interpret the reflected radiation to read the pattern from the reflected radiation.
A method for labeling an object, the method comprising:
- forming a material comprising at least two layers of graphene on an object, the graphene absorbing incident energy uniformly across all wavelengths of incident energy at a ratio proportional to a number of layers of the graphene;
- and
- forming a unique pattern in the material, the unique pattern comprising a unique identifier for the object label that is a unique two-dimensional pattern created by variations in the number of layers of the graphene along at least one of two orthogonal directions across the material and that can be read by energy reflected through the object label.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.