Identifying a dot-matrix hologram by checking the intersecting angles of its gratings

Three features about the intersecting state of two gratings are used to identify dot-matrix holograms created by two-beam writers in this paper. The first feature is the intersection angle of the fringes of two gratings. The second feature is the ratio of the pitches of two lowest-order moire-patterns formed by overlapping two gratings. The third feature is the length ratio of the two diagonal lines of a parallelogram constructed by two neighboring fringes of a first grating and two neighboring fringes of a second grating. All the three features are equivalent, i.e. they are all relative to the intersection angle of two gratings. Because the grating orientations of grating dots cannot be accurately reproduced for the orientation uncertainties of the components used by a two-beam writer, the intersection angles of the gratings of grating dots cannot be easily counterfeited. Therefore, the proposed methods are practical and feasible for the anti-counterfeiting applications of dot-matrix holograms. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.