Diametryx’s Innovative Colour Change Particles

At the Optical & Digital Document Security (ODDS) conference in April, Michael Natan, President of Diametryx Inc, presented this new company’s intriguing colour-change particles for use as an overt security feature.

Assuming the company’s promise is realised in production, it could offer a new option for colour-change features on authentication labels and tax stamps.

Natan has an impressive track record of inventing novel security taggants on the sub-micron scale, with a string of patents dating back to a first priority date in 1999.

He co-founded Nanoplex Technologies to commercialise the technology. The company went through a series of acquisitions and name changes before the process was eventually bought by SICPA, through its acquisition of Cabot Security Materials in 2014.

He is one of three founder-directors and funders of Diametryx, which was set up in late 2022 and is based in the Boston University Photonics Center.

Diametryx is developing a family of micro- to nanoscale colour-changing particles, which it calls Janus particles (after the Roman god of opposites). The particles can change colour through one of three activation mechanisms: magnetism, mechanical agitation (ie. shaking) or tilting.