Binary temporary photo-response of ZnSe:Mn/ZnS quantum dots for visible time-domain anti-counterfeiting.

The development of multi-level anti-counterfeiting techniques is of great significance for economics and security issues, particularly the newly emerged temporal-domain techniques based on lifetime coding. However, the intricate reading methods required to obtain temporal-level information are inevitably cumbersome and expensive, which greatly limits the practical applications of these techniques. Herein, we report a novel, unclonable time-domain anti-counterfeiting strategy for the first time, which is achieved using photo-responsive ZnSe:Mn/ZnS quantum dots (QDs) with dynamic luminescence and can be authenticated by the naked eye.