Large Capacity of Data Storage and Information Encryption in Optical Encoder Disk by Integrating Phase Angle and Time Lock Based on Luminescence Metal Nanoclusters

The traditional “matrix” symbol patterns from the luminescence materials are mainly involved in a 2D plane, which seriously limits the information security and storage capacity. Here, a novel strategy is designed to extend two additional dimensions into a 2D plane by integrating time-gated response and phase angle changes of luminescent patterns. The strong orange fluorescence assemblies in an optical encoder disk are obtained after adding metal ions (Zn²⁺ or Al³⁺) and ammonia into copper nanoclusters (CuNCs) mainly due to aggregation-induced emission (AIE) behavior. The number of CuNCs-based aggregates is closely related to rotating angle changes. On the contrary, these aggregates can be reversibly dissembled upon exposing to adenosine triphosphate (ATP) in concomitant with their luminescence quenching. Their different quenching rates are on-demand controlled by the coordination reaction kinetics between ATP and metal ions in different pH value, which is conducive to the design of a series of time-locked information. The encoding patterns comprehensively utilize the static and dynamic characteristics of materials by rotating the phase angle at the specific time. The phase angle and time double locks is added into 2D plane to form a 4D storage models, which realizes higher-level information encryption and larger data storage capacity.