Decoding of 23 Unique Magnetic Nanobarcodes

The unmet demand for data privacy and brand protection in anti-counterfeiting has urged heavyweight industries to develop new nanomaterials for barcoding. Here, we tailor the remanence spectra of magnetic nanowires (MNWs) to make 23 new unique magnetic nanobarcodes signatures. Using arrays of 30 and 100 nm diameter MNWs, composed of FeCo, Ni, or Co, we establish design rules for generating diverse codes followed by the description of a simple decoding algorithm. When used together, remanence spectra and our decoding algorithm enabled unambiguous identification of 14 of 15 combinations of two nanobarcodes. When three nanobarcodes were present at the readout simultaneously, our algorithm was able to successfully identify 9 of 20 combinations. Our approach opens a promising path toward expandable encoding and reliable decoding of MNWs.