SFU researchers are behind a new nanotechnology—inspired by the tiny holes on a butterfly’s wings—that can be used to produce images that can’t be copied or scanned, making it ideal for fighting counterfeiting.

Engineering science professor Bozena Kaminska and her former student Clint Landrock developed the “nano-holes”, which are 1,500 times smaller than the width of a human hair—so tiny that air can’t pass through them and they can trap a single wavelength of light.

Kaminska and Landrock then pitched their idea to Doug Blakeway, SFU Venture Connection’s entrepreneur in residence, who liked it so much he formed Nanotech Security Corp. with the pair to market the technology, dubbed Nano-Optic Technology for Enhanced Security (NOtES).

NOtES is first being applied to banknotes but the technology has many other anti-counterfeiting applications such as authenticating legal documents, retail merchandise, concert tickets, stock certificates, visas, passports and pharmaceuticals.

Landrock, who is now Nanotech’s chief technology officer, came up with the idea of imitating the Central American morpho butterfly’s wings, which have microscopic gratings composed of nano-holes that interact with light to produce their characteristic shimmering iridescence. The nanostructures act to reflect and refract light waves to produce the morpho’s signature blue wings and absorb other unwanted light.

NOtES “absorbs light and gives off the color,” explains Blakeway. “There’s no color pigment—there’s nothing like a dye or anything else. It’s a hole that traps light and releases color. You can’t copy or scan it in, you can’t inkjet it on paper.

“It’s extremely sophisticated and expensive to make the shims and dyes, but very inexpensive to produce it at the end. Anywhere you can think of where a hologram is being used today, our technology can replace it. It’s more secure than a hologram. You can’t lift it off—we can put it onto metal, plastic, or paper.”

Nanotech is currently pitching NOtES to both the Bank of Canada and the U.S. Treasury, which prints as many as 11 billion banknotes a year.