Intellectual property

Every crystal the same. Patented.

Growing rare-earth crystals that are all one size and one shape took years of work, and how we do it stays a trade secret. The crystals themselves are protected by patent.

The key claim ↓The history

21U.S. patents held by IMS

2010first filing for uniform crystals

4U.S. patents in the uniform-crystal family

Pennco-owner of the uniform-crystal family

Ordinary powder: every grain is different.

Illustration

The key claim

Uniform rare-earth crystals, claimed as such.

This is the heart of our patent position. The claim covers the crystals themselves, not one recipe or one use: crystals of a rare-earth lattice in a single pure phase, all the same size and all the same shape.

Claim 1 · uniform-crystal family

“A plurality of monodisperse particles, the particles each having: a single pure crystalline phase of a rare earth-containing lattice, a uniform three-dimensional size, and a uniform polyhedral morphology.”

One pure crystal phaseEvery atom on its place in one rare-earth lattice, with the emitters built in. No mix of phases, no second material.

A uniform 3-D sizeNot just a narrow average: each crystal has the same length, width and height as the next.

A uniform polyhedral shapeFlat crystal faces, the same shape every time: plates, rods, prisms or bipyramids, chosen by design.

Illustration

How uniform is uniform?

Same dimensions, same shape, within about 10 nm.

The patents define it in plain terms: the particles have “the same dimensions and the same shape, within a tolerance of about 10 nm or less.” For a 500 nm crystal, that is about 2% from one crystal to the next.

Uniform crystals also do something ordinary powders cannot: they line up on their own into ordered arrays, like tiles. That self-assembly is part of the same patent family.

Granted Nov 10, 2015US 9,181,477The first uniform-crystal patent Granted Sep 12, 2017US 9,758,724Continuation Granted Sep 4, 2018US 10,066,163Continuation Granted Apr 30, 2019US 10,273,407Continuation

Owners: Intelligent Material Solutions and the University of PennsylvaniaInventors: Joshua E. Collins, Howard Y. Bell, Xingchen Ye, Christopher B. MurrayFirst filed: October 1, 2010

From the patent · Fig. 1

Same size, same shape. A different clock.

Because every crystal is the same, its glow is the same too, so the recipe inside can set a precise clock. Add more ytterbium and the glow rises faster. The figure in our patent shows six recipes, each with its own rise and decay. Move the slider.

Ytterbium in the crystalYb 9.8%

01.26.98.99.59.8%

Rise time τ₁80 µs

Decay time τ₂7,300 µs

τ₁ / τ₂0.01

Curves redrawn from the rise and decay times listed in Fig. 1 of the uniform-crystal patents (Y₂O₃:Yb,Er, emission at 1540 nm; Er 0.2% for the 0% Yb sample and 0.5% for the rest). The 500 nm sphere is an illustration.

The same clock also tells temperature: heat changes how fast the glow rises and fades. See Intelligent Material as a thermometer →

Uniform crystals: six recipes, six separate signatures.

Illustration

Why uniform matters

Uniform is what makes the codes readable.

In an ordinary powder, big and small grains glow differently, so two recipes blur into each other. When every crystal is the same, each recipe gives one sharp, repeatable signature, and a reader can tell them apart. That is why the combinations in our code library work at all.

The claims reach across

Yttrium lattices: NaYF₄, LiYF₄, KYF₄, Y₂O₃, Y₂O₂SLanthanide lattices: LaF₃, GdF₃, EuF₃ and moreYb/Er · Yb/Tm · Yb/HoPlates · rods · prisms · bipyramids1 nm to 250 µmUp- and down-convertingSelf-assembled arrays

Every dial on our combination lock is turned on this one platform: uniform crystals.

US 11,320,308 · granted May 3, 2022 · with Princeton University

Uniform crystals keep one clock. Shaped light plays it.

Because every uniform crystal runs on the same clock, they all answer light the same way. This patent teaches a bank of lasers to learn the exact pattern of light, switched on and off in 20-microsecond steps, that pulls the color you want out of a crystal. Nothing about the crystal changes. Only the light does.

Target: green. The loop searches for the pulse that makes the crystals greener.

Illustration

From the patentGreen share up 5 ± 1%

Lasers at 808, 830 and 980 nm hold a steady plateau while the glow is measured, feeding the green levels of erbium.

Shape. Seven laser diodes, 785 to 1550 nm, each driven by its own current pattern: 1,400 settings across a 4 ms pulse.
Shine. The combined light excites the crystals.
Watch. Three detectors record violet, green and red every 2 µs.
Learn. An evolution strategy keeps the best patterns and breeds the next round. It settles in about 400 rounds, roughly ten minutes.

Uniform crystals: one clock, so one pulse moves every crystal the same way.

Why the two patents fit

A pulse is learned for one clock.

The loop tunes its light to the timing of the material in front of it: how fast each energy level fills and empties. In an ordinary powder, every grain size keeps different time, so the best pulse for one grain is wrong for the next and the colors blur. Uniform crystals all keep the same time, so the pulse that works for one works for every one of them, batch after batch.

That turns color into something the light can set. The same crystal can be asked for a different answer at the reader, a natural fit for reading the clock and for challenge-and-response checks.

1The crystals · US 9,181,477 and familyUniform crystalsOne phase, one size, one shape, so every crystal keeps the same clock. 2The light · US 11,320,308Shaped lightLasers learn the pulse that plays that clock for the color you want. 3The reader · US 11,435,228Reading the clockA detector reads the answer back from the rise, the hold and the decay.

Filed on the same day: the shaped-light and clock-reading applications share a first filing date of July 17, 2018.

Plain-language summary of US 11,320,308 B2, jointly owned by Princeton University and Intelligent Material Solutions. Inventors: François Laforge, Herschel Rabitz, Howard Y. Bell and Joshua E. Collins. The patent demonstrates the loop on an erbium phosphor (Gd₂O₂S doped with 6% Er). The color changes quoted are from the patent; the waveforms, glow and fitness curve redraw Figs. 3 to 5 and are illustrative.

Open in Google Patents

Illustration

US 11,435,228 · granted September 6, 2022

Reading the clock.

The crystals set the clock and shaped light plays it; this patent covers reading it. A light source excites the material, a detector watches the glow, and a processor measures how the response changes across three parts of the signal.

Part 1 · the rise. Light on, before the glow reaches its peak.

Part 2 · after the peak. Light still on, after the maximum.

Part 3 · the decay. After the light is turned off.

Owned solely by IMS. Inventors: Joshua E. Collins and Howard Y. Bell. First filed July 17, 2018. It names the uniform crystals of US 9,181,477 as suitable materials.

Open in Google Patents

Patent and trade secret

What it is: patented. How we make it: secret.

A patent tells the world what you own. The craft of growing crystals this uniform, batch after batch, is closer to alchemy: years of trial, measurement and adjustment that we keep in-house.

Patented · public

The crystals

Uniform rare-earth crystals: one phase, one size, one shape
The lattices, emitter pairs, shapes and sizes in the claims
How the crystals are read: rise, hold and decay (below)
Readers, articles and devices built around them

Trade secret · in-house

The craft

Recipes and ratios for each crystal in the library
Process conditions, refined over years of batches
Quality control that keeps every batch matching the last
Scale-up from the lab flask to production

New inventions · patent applications

Sign it. Seal it. Prove it.

Three new IMS applications carry the crystals into signed memorabilia, team merchandise and brand identity: a pen whose ink answers to light, a phone check that reads an item’s own starfield, and a reader that asks every item three questions before it says “genuine.” Two have now been published by the U.S. Patent Office.

PublishedUS 2026/0264442 A1 · published Sep 10, 2026 · priority Feb 27, 2025 · Morey et al.Read the application ↗

A pen whose ink answers to light.

To the eye it writes in ordinary black or blue. Inside, two ink reservoirs feed one tip at the same time, so every stroke carries a crystal that glows under ultraviolet and a second one that glows under infrared.

Two inks, one stroke. Separate compartments dispense together, mixing UV and IR crystals in every line.
A code in the ink. The color, rise time and decay of the glow can encode an identifier, even a player’s jersey number.
A lightmap in every signature. Reflective flakes land at random as you write, so no two signatures share the same pattern.
Black ink without carbon. Carbon black blocks infrared, so the ink is formulated to let the light through.
Checked by phone. An IR VCSEL and UV light in a phone or small reader read the ink, then log the time and place to a blockchain-secured record.
A forensic layer too. A nanocrystal marker in the ink adds a third check for the lab.

Plain-language summary of the published application. It is not yet a granted patent, and the claims may change before one issues. Illustration only.

PublishedUS 2026/0141408 A1 · published May 21, 2026 · priority Nov 19, 2024 · Bell et al.Read the application ↗

The item carries its own proof.

Every printed patch of crystals lands at random, so each one is a starfield no one can copy. At the factory, the stars are counted and the count is encrypted into a tiny code printed beside them. Later, any phone with a near-infrared laser lights the stars, counts them again and checks the code. No server, no database, no signal needed.

A random lightmap. Upconverting crystals in the patch glow under near-infrared light at random points, a pattern set by chance and impossible to reproduce on purpose.
Counted by sector. The phone divides the lightmap into sectors, typically 25 to 100, and counts the glowing points in each to make a number sequence.
A rotor cipher. At the factory that sequence is encrypted with a rotor-based algorithm and a manufacturing seed key, then printed as a covert code: microtext, UV or IR ink, nano-dots or laser engraving.
Match within tolerance. The phone decrypts the code and compares. A worn patch that loses a point still passes; a copied code on someone else’s crystals does not.
More than one kind of star. Crystals with different colors and decay times add another layer to the count. A blocking layer can shape the patch, into a star for example, and the same idea works on circuit boards.

Plain-language summary of the published application. It is not yet a granted patent, and the claims may change before one issues. The numbers 12345 and 57913 are the example used in the application. Illustration only.

Patent pendingPriority: U.S. 63/764,287 · filed Feb 27, 2025 · not yet published

Three questions before “genuine.”

For jerseys, caps, hang tags, seals and ID cards. The mark is built in layers, and the reader fires a changing sequence of light at it, so a copy has to get every answer right, in the right order.

Three layers. An overt layer anyone can see under UV, a covert layer that answers only to infrared, and a forensic layer for the lab.
Challenge and response. One ultraviolet and two infrared colors of light. The reader can change the order every time.
Brand color, measured. The glow must match the team or brand color within a set tolerance (ΔE in CIELAB).
Color, spectrum and time. Authenticity rests on at least two of the three, including how long the glow lasts.
Pass, retest or fail. A match score with two thresholds asks for a second scan when the result is borderline, and every check can be logged.

Plain-language summary of the filed application; the claims as issued will define the patent. Illustration only.

All three are pending U.S. patent applications owned by Intelligent Material Solutions. None has been granted yet. The pen and light-based authentication applications have been published and are linked above; the three-question reader will be linked here when it is published.

History

Fifty years in the making.

Rare-earth crystals that turn infrared into visible light were studied at RCA Laboratories in Princeton. Making them perfectly uniform, and turning that uniformity into codes, is the work of IMS.

1971

RCA Laboratories, Princeton

Rare-earth crystals pumped by infrared diodes

Yocom, Wittke and Ladany show that rare-earth oxysulfides doped with ytterbium and erbium or thulium turn infrared light from GaAs diodes into green, blue and red. Reported from the building IMS works in today. Metallurgical Transactions 2, 763 (1971)

1993

Uniform nanocrystals

Murray, Norris and Bawendi

A controlled synthesis of nearly monodisperse semiconductor nanocrystals, later recognized by the 2023 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Christopher Murray is an inventor on the IMS / Penn uniform-crystal patents. JACS 115, 8706

2007

IMS research

Infrared light, visible results

Collins and Bell report rare-earth phosphors that turn infrared light into visible light for photodynamic therapy (Proc. SPIE).

2010

The breakthrough

Uniform crystals, made on purpose

With the Murray group at Penn, IMS publishes shape-controlled synthesis of upconverting crystals and their self-assembly (PNAS 107, 22430). The uniform-crystal patent is first filed on October 1, 2010.

2014

US 8,789,761

The crystals go into products

A transaction card with rare-earth layers that stay invisible to people but are seen by machines.

2015

US 9,181,477

Uniform crystals: granted

The key claim is granted, followed by three continuations in 2017, 2018 and 2019.

2022

US 11,320,308 · US 11,435,228

Playing and reading the clock: granted

In May, shaped light with Princeton University: lasers that learn the pulse that sets a crystal’s color. In September, the method and system for identifying phosphors from the rise, hold and decay of their glow. Both were first filed on July 17, 2018.

2024

US 11,922,265 · US 12,130,232

Readers, cards and phones

Authenticating an article from where the crystals are and how fast they rise and fade; and exciting the crystals with the infrared laser in a mobile device.

2025

Patent pending

The pen and the three-question reader

Applications for a phosphor pen whose ink answers to UV and IR light, and for a layered brand-protection system read by challenge and response. See them above.

2026

US 2026/0141408 · US 2026/0264442

Two applications published

Light-based authentication, where a phone counts an item’s own crystals and checks them against an encrypted code printed beside them, is published in May. The phosphor pen follows in September. See them above.

Today

21 U.S. patents

IMS holds the IP; NovaVera makes and sells

Intelligent Material Solutions holds all of the intellectual property. NovaVera Corp. makes and sells Intelligent Material under an exclusive license.

More patents

One page, patent by patent.

We are adding our patents here one at a time, each with what it covers in plain words. Next up:

Authentication · 2024US 11,922,265

An article and reader that check where the crystals are and how fast they rise and fade.

Google Patents →

Mobile reader · 2024US 12,130,232

Crystals excited by the infrared laser in a mobile device and read up close.

Google Patents →

Transaction cards · 2014US 8,789,761

Rare-earth layers in a clear card: invisible to people, seen by machines.

Google Patents →

Transaction cardsUS 9,665,815

Rare-earth materials in articles and transaction cards.

Google Patents →

Plain-language summaries, not legal opinions; the claims as granted define each patent. See all papers and patents on Publications.

Licensing and partnerships

Build on uniform crystals.

IMS holds the patents. NovaVera Corp. makes and sells Intelligent Material under an exclusive license. Tell us what you want to make.

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