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Rare-earth composition & ratios
Change host and dopant combinations to shift excitation pathways, emission wavelengths, intensity ratios and interaction between energy levels.
Intelligent Material Solutions develops intellectual property related to energy-converting materials. NovaVera Corporation is the commercialization arm for the technology.
Technology
Program the crystal.
Program the response.
Intelligent Material connects the physical world with the digital world. Our inert rare-earth crystals convert energy into measurable information. We engineer the crystal itself, changing how it interacts with light, energy, magnetic fields and its surrounding environment.
Real IMS crystals · TEM
Private demo · partners only
Crystal Lock and Shell Lab
Spin a crystal code, try a fake, then build core/shell crystals layer by layer and watch the combinations go through the roof. These interactive demos are open to partners.
Don't have the password?Please write to Viva Bell, Director of Operations at NovaVera Corp, who will be glad to share it with you.
Email Vivav@nova-vera.com
The reader · a chip, not an instrument
A phone-grade time-of-flight chip, tuned to our crystals.
Reading Intelligent Material does not need a lab instrument. It needs the same kind of tiny sensor phones use to measure distance, with two changes: a filter made for our crystals and a gate timed to their glow. The emitter can be swapped too, to any wavelength our crystals answer, or several emitters can share one chip.
Multizone eyes 8 × 8 single-photon zones
Some versions split the detector into 4 × 4 or 8 × 8 zones. Each zone counts photons on its own, so one chip can see several stripes, or a whole two-dimensional code, in a single look.
0 / 64 zones litwaiting for a code
The gate after every laser pulse
A stock chip listens for nanoseconds to measure distance. Ours waits until the laser echo is long gone, then listens from microseconds to milliseconds: the sweet spot where our crystals are still glowing and nothing else is.
Pick the lightThe emitter does not have to be 940 nm. Match it to the crystal, or put several on one die and fire them in sequence.
940 / 980 nmYtterbium antenna. The workhorse for upconverting codes.
808 nmNeodymium shells: a second channel 980 cannot see.
1550 nmErbium read directly, eye-safer and telecom-cheap.
UV or blue LEDEuropium and terbium downshifters.
Several on one chipFire 980 then 808 microseconds apart: the gated two-step that only the right crystal answers.
Built from the same class of part as commercial multizone time-of-flight sensors, such as STMicroelectronics' VL53 family (940 nm VCSEL, single-photon avalanche diode array, up to 8 × 8 zones). The bespoke filter, alternative or multiple emitters and microsecond-to-millisecond gating are IMS modifications; the ≈ $1 figure is an IMS cost target, not a vendor price.
The material is not the label.
The material is the technology.
The material is the technology.
The most powerful use of Intelligent Material is becoming part of the product itself. Once the crystal is inside a polymer, coating, ink, oil, fiber, biological assay or other compatible system, the product carries a persistent engineered response from the moment it is made.
We can encode information into composition, structure, wavelength response, lifetime, excitation dependence, magnetic behavior and core/shell interactions.
The result is a material that can convert energy, carry information and remain physically connected to the thing being measured, authenticated or controlled.
Programmable material
Six ways we engineer the response.
IMS treats each crystal as a multidimensional information carrier whose response can be engineered for a specific purpose.
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Size & morphology
Control particle dimensions, crystal facets and uniformity to influence optical behavior, surface interactions, processing and self-assembly.
03
Temporal response
Engineer rise, decay, persistence and lifetime behavior so time itself becomes another dimension of the material identity.
04
Magnetic properties
Combine optical and magnetic behavior to create materials that can be identified optically while responding to magnetic fields or separation methods.
05
Core / shell interactions
Separate, couple or enhance functions across nanoscale interfaces, including energy transfer, isolation, surface chemistry and plasmonic effects.
06
Optical power density
Vary excitation power density and measure how emission responds. The intensity-dependent response curve becomes another way to identify the material.
Energy conversion
Same crystal platform. Two directions of energy flow.
Rare-earth ions occupy discrete electronic energy states. By choosing the host, dopants and concentrations, we engineer which wavelengths are absorbed and which wavelengths are emitted.
Upconversion
Infrared in. Visible out.
Two or more lower-energy excitation events can populate higher excited states. The material can then emit a shorter-wavelength photon, allowing invisible near-infrared excitation to produce visible light.
Visible
980 nm · IR
UVVISIBLEIR
Downconversion
Higher-energy light in. Longer wavelength out.
A higher-energy photon is absorbed and the excited ion relaxes before emitting at a longer wavelength. We can engineer this response across UV, visible and infrared regions.
UV / blue
Visible / IR
UVVISIBLEIR
Crystal Designer
Start with the response you want.
Crystal Designer is a separate IMS tool for exploring the material variables that control optical behavior. Instead of presenting a fake software interface here, this page shows the design logic and then takes you directly into the real tool.
01ChooseHost lattice
Define the physical and chemical environment around the active ions.
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02ProgramRare-earth ions + ratios
Select activators and sensitizers and tune their concentrations.
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03ExciteChoose wavelength
UV, visible, 808, 940, 980, 1550 nm and other optical inputs.
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04ReadEngineer the response
Spectrum, lifetime, power-density response, magnetics and core/shell behavior.
A materials lineage
From the synthesis science that transformed quantum dots to IMS uniform-crystal IP.
Christopher B. Murray is an inventor on the IMS / University of Pennsylvania uniform-crystal patent family. He was also first author, with David Norris and Moungi Bawendi, on the landmark 1993 paper describing a controlled synthesis of nearly monodisperse semiconductor nanocrystals.
The 2023 Nobel Prize in Chemistry recognized Moungi Bawendi, Louis Brus and Aleksey Yekimov for the discovery and synthesis of quantum dots. The Nobel background specifically identifies Bawendi's 1993 advance in producing high-quality quantum dots with controlled size. IMS's work applies the same broader lesson to a different materials platform: precise control of nanoscale composition, size and architecture creates precise control of material behavior.
1993 · JACS
Murray, Norris & Bawendi
Synthesis and characterization of nearly monodisperse CdE semiconductor nanocrystallites.
Read the paper · 2023 Nobel Prize context
IMS / Penn patentUS 9,181,477
Morphologically and size uniform monodisperse particles and their shape-directed self-assembly. Inventors include Howard Bell, Joshua Collins, Xingchen Ye and Christopher Bruce Murray.
Private demo · partners only
Published science
Two peer-reviewed papers co-authored by IMS, in PNAS and Nature Chemistry, with electron micrographs, simulation movies and an interactive look at how crystal shape is controlled. Open to partners.
Don't have the password?Please write to Viva Bell, Director of Operations at NovaVera Corp, who will be glad to share it with you.
Email Vivav@nova-vera.com
Intellectual property
Protected from crystal synthesis to information readout.
The portfolio spans uniform particles and assemblies, temporal authentication, rare-earth materials in articles and systems for identifying Intelligent Material from its engineered emission response.
Morphologically and size-uniform particles
Monodisperse particles and shape-directed self-assembly developed with the University of Pennsylvania.
Continuations: shape, conversion and assemblies
Related claims involving up- and down-converting particles, polyhedral morphology and organized superlattices.
Identity in rise and decay
Authentication using engineered temporal characteristics of the emission response.
Rare-earth materials in transaction cards
IR-blocking inks incorporating rare-earth Intelligent Material for article and transaction-card authentication.
Identification from emission response
Methods and systems for identifying Intelligent Material from changes in emission response under controlled illumination.
If you manufacture, why not give your widget intelligence at the beginning?
Start with the material itself. IMS can help define the excitation, emission, temporal, power-density, magnetic and structural response needed for the application.
Work with IMS