preparation and characterization of photochromic polymer nanoparticles for the development of highly efficient anticounterfeiting nanoinks

Dual photochromic and photoluminescent latex nanoparticles were synthesized to develop innovative anticounterfeiting nanoinks with applications in encryption technology. the colloidal nanoparticles bearing hydroxyl functional groups and different polarity ratios were derived from 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate and methyl methacrylate through semi-continuous miniemulsion copolymerization. investigation of the particle size determination and morphological analysis demonstrated latex nanoparticles with spherical morphologies, a mean size of about 80 nm, and narrow size distribution. afterwards, photochromic moieties were incorporated onto the surface of the nanoparticles, and their optical properties were studied subsequently. further investigation on optical properties exhibited that reducing the scale of the colloidal samples in the range of 60-100 nm can significantly effect on photochromic and photoluminescence properties of the latex nanoparticles. this is an efficient way to provide remarkable photoreversible anticounterfeiting inks for different applications, such as printed photo-marking, rewritable handwriting patterns, security encoded tags, and labelling.