Image: Action Press/Rex Features

Editor’s Note: Used to “simplify tracking” of bank notes.  How convenient.

John Evans
New Scientist

GOOD old-fashioned cash is to go down the electronic route, now that it is possible to stamp simple electronic circuits directly onto banknotes.

Modern banknotes contain up to 50 anti-counterfeiting features, but adding electronic circuits programmed to confirm the note’s authenticity is perhaps the ultimate deterrent, and would also help to simplify banknote tracking.

Silicon-based electronic circuits are clearly too thick to be incorporated into thin and fragile banknotes, but semiconducting organic molecules might be a viable alternative.

A team of German and Japanese researchers created arrays of thin-film transistors (TFTs) by carefully depositing gold, aluminium oxide and organic molecules directly onto the notes through a patterned mask, building up the TFTs layer by layer.

Read Full Article

Image: Action Press/Rex Features

Editor’s Note: Used to “simplify tracking” of bank notes.  How convenient.

John Evans
New Scientist

GOOD old-fashioned cash is to go down the electronic route, now that it is possible to stamp simple electronic circuits directly onto banknotes.

Modern banknotes contain up to 50 anti-counterfeiting features, but adding electronic circuits programmed to confirm the note’s authenticity is perhaps the ultimate deterrent, and would also help to simplify banknote tracking.

Silicon-based electronic circuits are clearly too thick to be incorporated into thin and fragile banknotes, but semiconducting organic molecules might be a viable alternative.

A team of German and Japanese researchers created arrays of thin-film transistors (TFTs) by carefully depositing gold, aluminium oxide and organic molecules directly onto the notes through a patterned mask, building up the TFTs layer by layer.

Read Full Article