| AUTHORIZATION OF THE SIGNS The nature of our authorization allows to detect originality of the corporate signs from the first look and with naked eye. The extra optical effects detectable by instrument methods could be added also, if required. More over, it is possible to settle two absolutely different images on the one spot and make them visible under the different reflection angles of the incident light. In this way the logos, trade and service marks, parts of company styles, contact, commercial, advertising and other information are protected reliably. The impossibility to reproduce your signs is provided by the means of the flat optics manufactured with the help of digital e-beam lithography which is the most costly and hard to achieve method, having the widest range of possibilities in optical recording. It eliminates unauthorized reproduction of your sings. This method used more then 10 years by many customers. It does not require to create costly and complicated infrastructure to check originality of the goods. It requires only to apply a cheap tamper-proof sticker on a product giving possibility to convince the most doubting purchaser in authenticity of goods. THE FUNDAMENTAL FEATURES "What is a hologram? An optical variable device? A phase optical element? A flat optical element? Or perhaps it is an illusion simply created by light ..." Actually our products named holographic are named conventionally because of their rainbow color and adequately acceptance in the market within settled terminology. In reality the optical features are formed by etching of 100 – 200 nanometers depth relief with e-beam in vacuum. We are to do with relief which is not the image of some object or the impression of any wave front. The relief for your image with its additional optical effects is mathematically specially synthesized using Maxwell equations and the Kirchhoff and Fresnel approximations for the flat optics. Your sign is graphically adapted to technology requirements at the beginning, then it becomes the initial information for creating of the nano-relief. The method and examples of such solutions given in A. V. Goncharski, A. A. Goncharski Computer Optics & Computer Holography, Moscow University Press, 2004. -315p. ISBN 5-211-04902-0. The same examples are given below. |
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| High resolution line patterns. Super high resolution of e-beam technology allows to fit a wide range of security features in a hologram for visual control. High resolution line patterns are the sets of thin lines of complicated geometry. They show continuous visual changes of color along each separate line. | 
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| Concealed image. Concealed images are a specific feature for visual control, which could be produced using e-beam technology only. They have the form of very thin lines and contours. Concealed images could be seen at a large angle of light diffraction. | 
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Switch effects. Switch effects are very attractive for visual control of the holograms. The switch effect means switching images being seen in the same place of the hologram, if viewed at different angles. There are several types of the switch effects distinguished as follows: Horizontal, Vertical and at 90-degree turn. E-beam technology allows holograms to be complexed with the switch effects. That is not possible to achieve using optical technologies in hologram recording. When a 100-micron micro text is used as a switching image element, we call it the mini switch effect. It could be visually observed with the help of a common magnifying glass. |
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| Kinematic effects. E-beam technology allows to extend the scope of visual control by fitting into a hologram various kinematic effects which could be seen, when the hologram observation conditions are changed. By turning or inclining the OVD, one could see movement of the certain hologram details. |
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| 2D/3D and 3D images. This type of hologram is very popular however it is most susceptible for counterfeiting, because of common recording technology. E-beam technology allows to produce 2D/3D holograms with additional security features, e.g., micro texts or hidden images. It is impossible to forge such holograms using optical methods of recording. 3D holograms created with e-beam technology are computer synthesized unlike the most of optically recorded ones. It means that the three-dimensional models of the objects being fitted into a hologram are to be developed in the process of creation of such holograms. E-beam synthesized 3D holograms are extremely difficult to counterfeit. The incorporation of 5 to 25-micron micro texts is a reliable protection against hologram forgery by optical recording technologies. |
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| Micro and Nano Texts. Micro texts fitted in optically recorded and dot-matrix holograms are typically > 50-100 microns in size. E-beam technology allows to fit into a hologram the nano texts as small as several microns. Nano texts of 5 to 10 microns could be seen through a good optical microscope. Micro texts of 25 microns could be easily seen in a common microscope. Micro texts of 150 microns which used as elements of fast authenticity control could be observed through a common magnifying glass. Resolution of e-beam generators allows to record nano texts as small as one micron easy. However such nano text could be seen with electron microscopes only. It could be used, when it is controlled similar to the production process. |
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True color. The developing of a hologram is a complex technological process. On the other hand, it is an art. Some holograms are real masterpieces. Please have a look on the painting Serebryakova Zinaida Eugenyevna / Making toilet. Self-portrait. Technique: canvas on a cardboard, oil. Annotation: State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow. 1909. The painting is left. The hologram is right. |
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SOME COVERT AUTHORIZATION MEANS |
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| Covert Laser Readable Image (CLR). CLR image is an important attribute of instrumental inspection of a hologram at present. It could be recorded optically also. However computer synthesized CLR images have much greater potentialities. This technology is based on the flat computer optics advantages. The holograms produced by binary technology creates on the screen of a control instrument symmetrical images in the first and minus first orders of diffraction. It is easy to find a hidden image on a hologram. CLR image production technology allows to visualize a hidden image in any place of the hologram. |  |
| Animated Covert Laser Readable Images. E-beam technology offers a number of hidden features that are impossible to record using optical or dot-matrix technology. One of them is animated or dynamic CLR images. A dynamic CLR image is a set of CLR images that produce animation effect on the screen of an inspection instrument when it moves along the surface of a hologram. CLR images are symmetrical in the first and minus first orders of diffraction for the binary technology. |
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| Multilevel Covert Laser Readable Image. This technology constitutes the crowning achievement of the flat computer optics. It does with the solution of the inverse problem of a flat optical element synthesis which forms a specified CLR image. The problem of creating a nano relief of an asymmetric multilevel CLR image is complicated as well. Such relief looks different in the first and minus first orders of laser light diffraction on the screen of the inspection instrument. |
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| Multi level Animated Covert Laser Readable Image. This is one of the most sophisticated security elements, which allows easy verification using instruments for visualizing hidden images. When the inspection instrument of a hidden image moves along the surface of a hologram, the animated picture is created on its monitor. The asymmetrical nano relief allows to produce different animated images in the first and minus first orders of diffraction. |  |
| Shaped Pixel Technology. E-beam technology offers unique features for the instrumental inspection. Pixels could be of any arbitrary shape (triangles, hexagons, etc.) Holograms could be recorded using any dense packing of the plane e.g. Escher-style figures. Each pixel is filled with a grating. Not only orientation, but the period of gratings may vary from pixel to pixel also. |
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It is far to the full list of possible overt and covert authorization means of your signs. More over, there are extra technical means on the stage of mass production. One of them is the local demetallization of aluminum having optical properties. It gives substantial complication of the graphic design of the end product.  |
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