A dual-stimuli-responsive intelligent layered lanthanide hydroxide for application in information security and latent fingerprint identification

With the rapid changes in the field of information, the research and development of optical storage materials with high security and large storage capacity are particularly important in the development of contemporary society. However, conventional memory materials with static fluorescent outputs have the disadvantages of easy simulation and forgery, which limits their practical application in the protection of confidential information. In this research, a dual-stimuli-responsive intelligent fluorescent material based on Tb³⁺ and Eu³⁺ ions doped layered lanthanide hydroxide (LYH:Eu_xTb_1–xDPA) was fabricated, which can realize reversible multi-color luminescence conversion (from green to red) by varying the pH and temperature. Combined with the Morse code and security pattern, the multiple encryption and decryption of confidential information and anti-counterfeiting can also be realized. Therefore, the obtained intelligent fluorescent material has a great application prospect for information security. In addition, due to the excellent color tunability, the material can provide the possibility to obtain potential fingerprints with high contrast and no background interference on different color substrates. The unique dual-stimuli-responsive behavior of this material provides more ingenious design inspiration for the design of multi-color intelligent fluorescent devices.