Uncovering Hi-Tech Messages

Reported October 2011

BOSTON (Ivanhoe Newswire)--It’s like James Bond meets Bill Nye the Science Guy. Students and professors at Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Science have created a chip that can test chemicals and be used as an encryption device! We’ll show you how a gemstone makes it all possible.

Inside a not-so-secret lab at Harvard University, we find an international man of mystery. Engineering and applied science grad student Ian Burgess is working with a team on some pretty sophisticated stuff.

“We’re actually creating opal,” Joanna Aizenberg, a material scientist at Harvard University told Ivanhoe.

Material scientist Joanna Aizenberg says the synthetic opals are actually inversed in shape and full of pores so liquids can penetrate them. They’re grown on chips and shimmer in the light. When wiped with chemical solutions (like a mixture of five percent water and 95 percent ethanol) secret messages embedded in the chips appear. Different concentrations can reveal different messages on the same chip. Then it all disappears when dried. It’s called watermark ink. W-Ink for short. Ian says it works because of chemistry and surface tension. Some liquids bead up, others flatten on surfaces.

“And so that made us very excited because everything has surface tension,” Ian Burgess, a Harvard grad student told Ivanhoe.

While experimenting with W-Ink’s wet encryption capabilities another discovery was made. If programmed a certain way. The invention could be used to identify hazardous chemicals.

“We realized that actually it might also be very well used for this application,” Burgess said.

It can tell you about unknown liquids spilled in the lab or if you’re getting the gas you paid for.

“(It’s) something that you can use in the field that gives immediate read out,” Aizenberg concluded.

From quality control to encryption, W-Ink’s possibilities might even make James Bond’s “Q” jealous.

Chemists, material scientists, electrical engineers and mechanical engineers all played roles in developing W-Ink. Ian says he’s already been contacted by companies interested in its liquid identifying capabilities.

The American Physical Society, AVS, the Science and Technology Society and the Materials Research Society contributed to the information contained in the TV portion of this report.

Click here to Go Inside This Science and View Video or contact:

Joanna Aizenberg
Engineer
Amy Smith Berylson Professor of Materials Science
School of Engineering and Applied Science
Harvard University
jaiz@seas.harvard.edu

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