Design and fabrication of metameric interference thin films based on metal-dielectric structure for optical security devices

Abstract

Interference thin film based on metamerism is the latest means in the field of optical anti-counterfeiting. In this paper, we propose a pair of metal-dielectric metameric interference thin films that could create a hidden image for optical security devices. To improve color match tolerance of the metameric pair, the angle insensitive metal-dielectric Fabry-Perot structure was designed as the metameric pair background film B; The logo film A adopts the five-layer angle sensitive structure to enhance the contrast. The film B is designed to have a weak color-shift effect as the observation angle is increased. When the observation angle increases from 0° to 15°, the reflectance spectrum of film B changes smoothly, and the color difference indexes between film A (0°) and film B (0°, 5°, 10°, 15°) are 0.968, 0.988, 1.798 and 3.778, respectively. This design is less sensitive to manufacturing errors and has a good color match effect. Color target optimization optimac method is utilized in the design process and remote plasma sputtering is used in the deposition process. The color difference index of the experiment is 2.753, which shows good hidden image effect for the optical security devices.