ABSTRACT Counterfeiting remains a persistent challenge, as existing identification technologies struggle to simultaneously achieve large‐scale deployability and intrinsic security. Macroscopic labels are straightforward to fabricate and read but are vulnerable to duplication, whereas microscopic physically unclonable functions (PUFs) offer high security at the expense of fabrication complexity and verification cost. Here, we propose a wrinkle‐assisted fluorescent hierarchical PUF strategy that integrates controllable replication with nanoscale randomness through transfer printing of self‐assembled quantum dot (QD) nano‐meshes via a surface‐engineered PDMS wrinkled stamp. Random wrinkles with rigid and hydrophilic surface shells are initially generated on PDMS via UVO‐induced bilayer buckling and subsequently subjected to post‐wrinkle surface engineering to restore a soft and low‐surface‐energy stamp, which is essential for high‐quality and durable hierarchical PUF patterns. The reproducibly transferred micro‐fingerprint patterns can be conveniently recorded using portable imaging devices for rapid verification; QD‐assembled nano‐meshes within the wrinkle ridges maintain intrinsically stochastic features arising from interfacial self‐assembly and wrinkle‐assisted transfer, and cannot be deterministically reproduced. When combined with deep learning and feature‐based comparison, this architecture supports accurate and real‐time identification with incremental scalability. This work offers a promising PUF architecture to combine scalable replication and intrinsic security in the anti‐counterfeiting field.
Liu et al. (Sun,) studied this question.