The 30th in the series of The Holography Conference™ (THC), held online on 21-22 November, was opened by Astrid Mitchell, Reconnaissance International, who welcomed the audience and thanked conference partners, the International Hologram Manufacturers Association (IHMA), as well as sponsors XRD nano and Raith Laser Systems, for their continuing support.

The conference was divided into four thematic sessions to reflect the diversity of applications for holograms in document security, brand protection, art, and packaging enhancement.

Session 1 – a new dawn

Micaal Sidorov, General Secretary of the IHMA, introduced the first paper of the conference which saw Dr Paul Dunn, Chair of the IHMA, reveal some very important news regarding the Hologram Image Register (HIR).

Holograms are increasingly incorporated with other optically active images to provide integrated, added value and advanced anti-counterfeiting solutions. To reflect this, the IHMA has expanded and rebranded the HIR to include all optically variable devices (OVDs). You can learn more about the new system, renamed the Security Image Register (SIR), on page 1.

The next paper, ‘Holograms on ID Documents – Where Next?’, was given by Francis Tuffy, Editor of Holography News® and ID & Secure Document News™.

Like Paul, Francis was Chairman of the IHMA, from 1998-2000. He has been a chartered engineer since 2014, has an MBA and is a member of the Institute of Physics.

Francis followed the historical route taken by holograms and other OVDs, from their original use in the driving licence of three of the most populous US states, to their current position as a mainstay of secure document design.

The paper looked in some detail, giving examples, at how technology providers have moved away from the typical fringe spacing of a hologram (roughly 300nm- 700nm) and increased the feature size to create Fresnel effects, while others have gone to smaller dimensions to harness evanescent wave technology for structured colour.

Drawing on the shift toward digitisation of the Schengen visa procedure and sticker as a possible trend, the paper argued that OVDs are still embedded in many ID and other secure document projects around the world and that there is a bright future for OVDs on ‘digital identity, physical equivalent’ programmes.

Puneet Maithani from the Authentication Solution Providers Association (ASPA), then explained how combining holography with various traceability and authentication solutions can protect against counterfeiting, ensuring the integrity of the increasingly interconnected world. Puneet gave examples of how holography is combining with technologies like blockchain and RFID to deliver on product and document authenticity, and the role that ASPA is playing to achieve this.

The paper ‘China Hologram Industry Overview and Development’, was presented by Coco Yan, who has been working in the security and identification industry for more than 20 years. Coco is the Executive Secretary of Security Identification Union (SID), which is a national association under the leadership of China International Association for Promotion of Science and Technology.

As Coco put it in her paper, most origination technologies used in China are imported, but with its own embossing and coating equipment, China has a domestic supply chain.

Some local hologram producers already have very advanced technology, like high- speed hologram foil with single image combined with deep-structure lens effects. The China hologram market is developing quickly, in both production technology and production capacity, and Coco predicted that Chinese hologram companies will soon be increasing their presence in the global market.

Session 2 – production and sustainability

The first presenter in this session, Doris Schulz-Pätzold, held project management positions at Bundesdruckerei and HID Global before joining Intergraf in 2017. Her paper, ‘Safeguarding the Security Printing and Hologram Manufacturing Supply Chain: A Collaborative Approach’ delved into the collaboration between Intergraf and the IHMA to integrate ISO standards and the Intergraf Certification Requirements to help ensure a multi- layered security framework.

This initiative has increased the trust of governments and central banks in these certification schemes, which have become essential benchmarks for maintaining secure and reliable supply chains for secure optical devices in an increasingly challenging world.

Jochen Kirsch, from ISRA Vision, has been working in the identity solutions and secure documents industry since the year 2000. In his paper ‘Closing the Quality Gap – How Brand Protection Holography Has Been Catching Up’, Jochen explored the differences between the modus operandi of traditional premium holographers and makers of holographic stickers for brand protection in emerging economies.

He looked at three areas where brand protection holographers have been starting to close the gap with premium manufacturers and pinpointed the activities that have been taken to achieve this. As you might expect, he gave prominence to optical inspection technologies, which have become increasingly important in the area of quality control.

Sustainability took centre stage for the next two papers, with Hazen Paper’s Don Harvard establishing the company’s environmental credentials in his paper ‘The Envirofoil®: Sustainable Manufacturing Increases Holographic Footprint in Packaging’. Don explained how Envirofoil has become sought after globally for its unique composition and classification as a curbside recyclable by multiple international institutions. Don concluded that the material’s recyclability is, in no small part, a major reason for many high- profile brands choosing Envirofoil as their packaging substrate of choice.

In ‘Sustainability in Holography – Challenges and Possible Solutions’, Yogesh Kapur, Global Business Head of Holography Business at Uflex, argued that one of the toughest tasks for company senior management at the moment is to determine how to inculcate a culture of sustainability amongst all their stakeholders. In his presentation, Yogesh described how companies can achieve effective results in operational sustainability by focusing on three pillars: source reduction, source substitution, and biodegradation.

Session 3 – authentication and anti-counterfeiting

Reconnaissance has recently published a new report ‘Smartphones for Authentication’, and in his paper covering the highlights of the report, its author Dr Alan Hodgson described topic areas of particular interest to the holography community.

The camera systems in smartphones are now evolving into machine vision capabilities. The presentation explored hologram replay opportunities in this area, leading to near IR replay and gesture recognition utility.

The presentation predicted that smart glasses might become a smartphone replacement and imagined some significant opportunities this could bring to the holography industry.

Provocatively, anti-counterfeit expert Kerre Corbin titled the next paper ‘Holograms – Aren’t They Just a Bit of a Bling?’, but quickly won the online audience back by affirming that holograms are technically complex security features that help protect security documents around the world.

As director of independent consultancy firm Kerrency Ltd, Kerre has years of experience providing training on counterfeiting issues to central banks, police agencies, commercial banks, and security industry companies, and has developed a strong sense of which security features and designs work and which don’t.

In her presentation, Kerre highlighted how the latest innovations can help in authenticating holograms for the non- technical user, asserting that a complex hologram can be easy to authenticate if the right effects are used in an intuitive design.

Josh Lamorena then presented ‘The Role of the ICC CCS in the Identification of Prevention of Economic Crime’. Josh is a manager at the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) Commercial Crime Services (CCS), where he oversees the Counterfeiting Intelligence Bureau’s (CIB) Security Image Register (SIR), operated on behalf of the IHMA.

Having been part of the team running the Hologram Image Register (HIR), the predecessor to the SIR, Josh confirmed that the register had successively flagged potential conflicts in copyright issues, allowing the IHMA to amicably resolve these conflicts amongst its membership, as well as provide assistance to law enforcement agencies.

Session 4 – security and beyond

The final session centred around new technologies and applications, starting with Dr Christelle Tuambilangana from SURYS – a member of IN Groupe – presenting ‘Controlled Multi-Scale Patterning and Related Colour Functions’. Christelle earned her PhD in nano-optics in 2015 for her research in designing and characterising sub-wavelength structures for infrared applications.

Her paper expanded on how combining structures at different scales allows the development of intuitive and unique security features that are extremely hard to counterfeit and have a strong visual impact on the viewer.

Zhongchao Special Security Technology is a subsidiary of China Banknote Printing and Minting Corporation, which is where the next presenter, Dr Dong Yang, has been working as a research and development engineer since 2019.

Dr Yang’s paper ‘Dynamic Optical Security Features Based on Light Field Shaping with Freeform Micro-Structure’ reported on a series of dynamic optical security features based on light field display elements, having developed a light field shaping algorithm to generate freeform micro- structures from any predefined angular intensity distribution.

Depending on the micro-structures, the light field display elements can realise a series of dynamic optical security features, including dynamic and 3D patterns. Dong characterised the techniques involved as follows:

1.Stereoscopic: parallax is achieved simultaneously in both horizontal and vertical directions.

2.Robust: compatible with general lighting conditions, such as sunlight, smartphone flashlight, bulb and lamp tube.

3.Achromatic: the freeform micro- structures have no rainbow colours.

4.High-resolution: pixel density greater than 1,000 dpi and each pixel can project light according to a predefined angular intensity distribution.

5.Integration: Fabry-Perot filter and surface plasmon polariton structures can be integrated.

In the concluding session of the conference, Christoph Gebauer presented his paper ‘Design Integration Meets Sustainability’, describing a new sample banknote with a holistic storytelling approach and intuitively recognisable features made by complex counterfeit resilient technology.

Christoph is responsible for the high- security foils at Papierfabrik Louisenthal, where he has been Senior Product Manager for more than nine years. In the second part of the presentation, he provided insights into the solutions for sustainability that have been achieved in the production of this concept banknote.

As has become customary, several of the techniques and technologies described in the presentations went on to win accolades in the IHMA Excellence in Holography Awards 2023, which were presented immediately following the conference closing. You can read about the award winners on page 1, as well as at ihma.org.