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UV LEDs help to detect counterfeit money

April 20, 2009

Seoul Semiconductor has reached an agreement with M-Vision to license patents related to a UV LED-based portable fluorescent forgery detector.

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Comparing mercury and LED lamps Seoul Semiconductor (SSC) has reached an agreement with M-Vision to license patents related to a portable fluorescent forgery detector. The technology was jointly developed by SSC’s subsidiary Seoul Optodevice and Korea Minting & Security Printing Corporation (KOMSCO).

The detector uses UV LEDs to analyze documents. As part of the licensing contract, Seoul Optodevice will receive licensing royalties from M-Vision, an industrial optical component developer, based on sales of the detector.

Portable fluorescent forgery detectors are widely used for identifying forgery of bank notes, securities, passports, gift coupons, and ID cards by commercial banks and financial companies, as well as a number of other businesses. SSC expects demand for such products to significantly increase as counterfeit money raises issues around the world.

Portable detectors Many detectors use UV mercury lamps, but UV LEDs provide advantageous performance in terms of lifetime, durability, output power and eco-friendliness. Existing UV mercury lamps require a low background light level, or even darkness, to detect forgeries, while UV LED-based detectors can easily identify forged documents even in bright places.

Seoul Optodevice has installed commercial production facilities of short wavelength deep-UV LEDs for the first time in the industry, in partnership with US-based Sensor Electronic Technology Inc (SETI) – see News.

Seoul Optodevice claims to be the only company that has commercialized short-wavelength, deep-UV LEDs as of now.