Developing security features that push the boundary of what has been done before requires courage, curiosity, commitment and collaboration. Note Printing Australia, SURYS and CCL Secure did just that, working together to ensure innovative foil features are compatible with the industry-leading Guardian polymer substrate.
Security feature manufacturer for sensitive documents and banknotes, SURYS, a brand of IN Groupe, has developed an innovative foil feature called Plasmogram™ Reverso dedicated to the banknote market. This new technology exhibits three different colours when viewed from different sides of the banknote,and when placed against a light source. It can be combined with diffractive animated elements, waves and other visual effects.
CCL Secure worked with SURYS over a period of six years to lay the foundations for industrial scale application of the foil on Guardian substrate, which involved testing and engineering the materials and production processes.
A new substrate meant new challenges for SURYS. A challenge that was identified early on was maintaining the optical clarity of Guardian’s transparent windows, the signature feature of polymer banknotes.
After application, the clear sections of the foil should not look any different to the clear sections of the window without foil applied. On a paper note, a certain haziness of the carrier or the adhesive layer is perfectly acceptable, as it will be invisible in front of the white opaque paper. However, this is not the case on a Guardian window, where the carrier and adhesive layers need to be completely transparent.
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The full article can be viewed in Specimen Magazine — Issue 11.
