A New Anti-Counterfeiting Feature Relying on Invisible Luminescent Full Color Images Printed with Lanthanide-Based Inks

Europium and terbium trisdipicolinate complexes are inkjet printed onto paper with commercially available desktop inkjet printers. Together with a commercial blue luminescent ink, the red-emitting luminescent ink containing europium and the green-emitting luminescent ink containing terbium are used to reproduce accurate full color images that are invisible under white light and appear under a 254 nm UV light. Such invisible luminescent images are attractive anti-counterfeiting security features. The luminescent prints have a color range (gamut) nearly as wide as the gamut of a standard sRGB display. The gamut of the luminescent prints is determined by relying on a simple model predicting the relative spectral radiant emittances of any printed luminescent color halftone. The model is also used to establish the correspondence between the surface coverages of the printed luminescent inks and the emitted color of these luminescent halftones. The accuracy of the spectral prediction model is very good and can be rationalized by the absence of quenching when the luminescent lanthanide complexes are printed in superposition with the other luminescent materials.