Imagine this….credit cards have tiny super-secret chips inside them, just like the cool spy gadgets in movies. National mints print special marks on money to keep it safe, kind of like invisible ink. And places with super important stuff, like top-secret labs, use scanners that look at your eyes to make sure you’re supposed to be there.
Brochosomes are 3D printed structures that can carry information
Now, there are some sneaky people out there who try to steal this stuff. But don’t worry! Sheng Shen and his colleagues at Penn State University have come up with a super clever idea. They’re making pictures that hide secrets pixel by pixel, like magic! They want to use this trick to make things even safer from sneaky thieves and make sure nobody can copy important stuff. Cool, huh?
They use these things called brochosomes. Brochosomes are like tiny soccer balls that have super tiny holes inside them. They don’t reflect light like normal things; instead, they soak it up! Scientists think this helps leafhoppers hide in the world around them, like sneaky little ninjas!
They make brochosomes with a3D printer that can make tiny things! So, there’s this team from Penn State who figured out how to make a special kind of code called a QR code. But get this, it’s so tiny, you can only see it with a microscope! They made it using a fancy printer that can control if each little dot in the code has holes or not. And guess what? You can only read this code with a special camera that sees in infrared light! Isn’t that neat? They’re thinking about making bigger ones for everyday stuff too. How cool is that?