Pressable photonic crystals produce full-colour fingerprints and promise enhanced security

In the future, law enforcement officials may take full-colour fingerprints using new technology developed by a University of Toronto-led team of international researchers. Far from the basic black-and-white fingerprints collected today, the new technology would use elastic photonic crystals to capture data-rich fingerprints in multiple colours, but the fingerprinting technique is just one potential application for the new technology.