Diamonex Business Offers Diamond-Like Carbon Coatings
Morgan Technical Ceramics' Diamonex Business Offers Diamond-Like Carbon Coatings to Keep Fingerprint Sensors Clean and Accurate
In today's security-conscious climate - catalyzed in no small part by the events of 9/11 - the need for effective personal identification is more pressing than ever. These security concerns have led to the exponential growth of the field of biometrics. The blossoming of biometrics is particularly evident in two areas. One is for employees in high-security areas, such as hospitals, airports, banks and shipyards. Consider the need to keep anyone unauthorized from gaining access to a hospital pharmacy or from entering maintenance areas without permission. The second market is for consumer commercial activities such as banking transactions or purchasing.
While behavioral traits such as handwriting are beginning to gain momentum, it is physical traits where biometrics companies have focused the bulk of their development efforts. The most common physical biometrics solutions include face recognition, voice recognition, hand geometry and iris recognition. Certainly, face recognition has been a staple of this practice. Putting a picture of a person's face on a card remains one of the most common identification practices for a variety of situations. However, a face on a card is extremely unreliable and easy to falsify, and people remain uncomfortable with the retinal scan, wary of the light that is flashed into the eye.
One facet of biometrics that has been gaining acceptance is one of the oldest: fingerprint scanning. Fingerprints, which have been used for over 100 years, are a reliable and effective method of identification given that no two people have identical fingerprints.
We are more often seeing fingerprint swipe scanners used on personal computers. They are already prevalent on cell phones in Asia and Europe. The sensor, in combination with the phone's wireless communication capabilities, transforms it into what is essentially a wireless banking device. The phone would be activated by the user's fingerprint, which, as it is passed in front of a vending machine, allows the vending machine to access the user's banking information. No change is required.
At Walt Disney World in Orlando, FL, biometric measurements are taken from the fingers of guests to ensure that the person's ticket is used by the same person from day to day. Such examples confirm that fingerprint scanning is becoming an accepted part of the public landscape.
Currently, there are two methods for reading fingerprints. One way is through the use of an optical scanner. In this type of application, a camera in the back of the device reads the picture of the person's finger when the finger is placed on a piece of glass. The second method is capacitance scanning, which measures small electrical differences between the ridges in a person's fingerprints when a finger is positioned on the face plate of the device or scanned across the sensor. The optical scanner is more precise - as well as larger and more expensive - while the capacitance scanner is typically very small and will provide a sufficient level of security for most everyday applications.
In the case of both optical and capacitance scanners, wear and tear is an ongoing issue. Scratching of the scanning surface can translate to decreased accuracy, as can the build-up of finger oils. The repeated use of these devices in high-traffic areas can also take its toll on performance. For capacitance scanners located in harsh, outdoor environments, the abuse is significantly magnified. What's more, scanning areas, which may also be constructed of a relatively fragile silicon metal or plastic, are even more susceptible to scratching than the glass generally found in optical scanners.
The answer is to protect these sensitive scanning surfaces with a diamond-like carbon (DLC) coating. The Diamonex Products business of Morgan Technical Ceramics (MTC), a leading manufacturer of innovative ceramic, glass, metal, and engineered coating solutions, offers a DLC coating that will not only guard against surface scratching and other forms of abuse, it will do so without sacrificing the precision of the optics it is protecting.
DLC is an amorphous carbon material that displays some of the unique properties of natural diamond. It is usually applied as a coating to other materials that could benefit from some of those properties, such as the surfaces of fingerprint scanners. The primary desirable qualities are hardness, wear resistance, optical transparency, and slickness (low coefficient of friction).
In addition, Diamonex's DLC coating is a dielectric (non-conducting) layer, which is part of the technical requirement for effective capacitance scanning. As a result, it can actually become an active part of the sensor. DLC coatings also have a smooth feel, which reduces friction and repels dirt.
Diamonex produces DLC and related coatings using plasma chemical vapor deposition processes operating at substrate temperatures typically less than 150°C. Because of the lower substrate temperature used in Diamonex's DLC processes, glass and plastic components can be coated in addition to metals and ceramics without risk to dimensional tolerances
The Diamonex DLC coatings are highly dense, conformal coatings with excellent adhesion. Depending on the application, they can be modified to change the electrical properties (for example, they can be fine-tuned to have some level of charge dissipation).
Diamonex Products provides a service coating option to customers that can ship their products to the Allentown, PA facility. As an alternative, Diamonex offers complete DLC coating systems for sale, backed by the dedicated installation, training, and service staff.
The expansion of the fingerprint scanning market is a phenomenon that can't be stopped. With it comes the need to protect the device from the wear and tear, environmental abuse and impact. Diamonex DLC coatings offer all of the above - and more.
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About Morgan Technical Ceramics
Morgan Technical Ceramics is a division of The Morgan Crucible Company Plc, comprising of Morgan Advanced Ceramics and Morgan Electro Ceramics. With manufacturing locations in North America, Europe and Asia, Morgan Technical Ceramics supplies an extensive range of products, including ceramic components, braze alloys, ceramic/metal assemblies and engineered coatings. For more information on Morgan Technical Ceramics Group visit http://morgantechnicalceramics.com/.