KURZ Moves on With KINEGRAM DYNAMIC®

Foil and thin film technology company KURZ has been a pioneer in the use of diffractive optical anti-counterfeit features on banknotes since its earliest developments on the French franc, the Australian dollar and the Austrian shilling. Its acquisition of OVD Kinegram (OVDK) in 1999 added access to proprietary optical features to its existing strengths in materials technology. And now KURZ has made another ground-breaking step forward with OVDK to introduce its latest optical technology, KINEGRAM DYNAMIC®.

In its more than 30 years’ experience of making and applying diffractive materials to banknotes (and many other secure documents of value), KURZ has established a modular banknote protection strategy which takes into account, amongst others, the form factor (patch, stripe, embedded), the degree of metallisation (all the way to zero tolerance between the diffractive feature and the metal area – the so-called KINEGRAM ZERO.ZERO) and unique KURZ technologies (such as KINEGRAM REVIEW® technology shows different images when viewed from the front and from the reverse).

The introduction of KINEGRAM DYNAMIC technology is the next building block in this modular approach as it introduces microlens based features into the banknote protection strategy. Unlike some microfabrication techniques that rely on a regular array, KINEGRAM DYNAMIC has a structure where the lenses are arranged in a freeform array and the shape and size of the lens surface can be individually adapted to the customer’s requirements.

The resulting properties of the array allow design control over the multiple colours, movement, depth, magnification, inversion and light & shade of image elements.

The design and security functions of the new optical device is further strengthened by its modular integration with the existing palette of KINEGRAM features and registration with the surrounding print on the banknote.

To help launch KINEGRAM DYNAMIC, to a vetted audience of central bank officials and industry partners, KURZ ran a webinar (16 February 2022) during which Dr Harald Walter (Head of Micro & Nano Engineering at OVDK) confirmed that the novel technology is a micro-lens based optical feature that provides multi-coloured deep 3D dynamic movement effects, allowing limitless design integration.

It can be applied in the normal patch or registered stripe form factors that you would expect on banknotes. Threads are likely to follow in a second phase of development.

As is often the case in webinars, the Q&A session threw up some of the most interesting exchanges between Dr Harald Walter, Peter Mühlfelder (Head of Business Area Security, KURZ) and the invited online audience. On this occasion, KURZ disclosed that they are open to starting projects with industry partners to trial the new device in additional form factors (including windows) and on different substrates.

One question that remains (intentionally) unanswered after the session is what is the technology that allows for such precise control over the dimensions of the lens array? Perhaps we’ll find out more when KURZ present their paper on KINEGRAM DYNAMIC at HSP Latin America (14-16 March 2022, Mexico City hsp-latinamerica.com)?

If you like to gain further technical insights into KINEGRAM DYNAMIC®, watch the KURZ expert interview at KINEGRAM DYNAMIC® | KURZ Banknotes (kurzbanknotes.com).