Intelligent Material Solutions develops intellectual property related to energy-converting materials. NovaVera Corporation is the commercialization arm for the technology.
Intelligent Material are inert crystals capable of converting energy. We engineer the crystal itself, changing how it interacts with light, energy, magnetic fields and its surrounding environment.
These controls can be used individually or together, giving the material spectral, temporal, magnetic, excitation-dependent and physical identities designed for a specific system.
Choose ions and concentrations to control absorption, emission, energy transfer and spectral identity.
Control crystal size, shape, uniformity and surface behavior to tune optical performance and integration.
Engineer lifetime and time-decay signatures so information can be read in time as well as wavelength and intensity.
Add magnetic behavior alongside optical functionality for manipulation, separation, sensing and encoded identity.
Isolate, protect or couple active regions to create new energy-transfer pathways and responses.
Vary excitation power density and read how the emission response changes. The intensity-dependent response curve becomes another way to identify the material.
The human body is constantly transforming energy: chemical energy into electrical signaling, mechanical motion, heat and work. Our senses go one step further. They convert energy from the environment into signals the brain can interpret.
The eye responds to a narrow band of electromagnetic radiation, roughly 400–700 nm. Rods and cones absorb photons and convert light into electrical signals the brain interprets as vision.
Sound arrives as mechanical pressure waves. Those vibrations move the eardrum and inner ear, bend sensory hair cells and are converted into electrical signals the nervous system can interpret.
Our crystals absorb energy and return a measurable optical, temporal, magnetic or physical response. By engineering the material itself, we control what energy goes in, what response comes out and what information that response carries.
“For there is always light, if only we're brave enough to see it,Amanda Gorman · “The Hill We Climb”
if only we're brave enough to be it.”
Science was invented for the good of humanity and it allows us to decipher the mysterious puzzle of the universe.
Technology is the product of science. Technology provides superior quality of life which is the same for all humans: longevity, security and a clean environment.
We have realized that rare earths are a key piece to the mystery. These basic ideas shape our mission and motivate our life.
But the puzzle belongs to everyone. Every person, every discovery, every material and every living system is another piece. Our work is to understand our piece and use it to help build a healthier, safer and cleaner world.
Howard Bell's letter explains how IMS began, why he sees rare-earth crystals as one piece of a much larger puzzle, and who inspires the work. Victoria Bell's artwork, including the two hands holding the sun in our logo, shaped the visual language of IMS.
When IMS began, we knew we had found an unusual piece: precisely engineered rare-earth crystals capable of converting energy and carrying information in ways that could be deliberately controlled.
As the same material platform began solving problems in authentication, diagnostics, defense, transportation, spectroscopy, imaging and therapeutics, the larger picture became increasingly clear.
The applications may look unrelated. The underlying science is not. Each application is another way of programming matter to interact with energy and information.
The old story of Eden imagines a place where humanity and nature were in balance before knowledge changed everything. Whether taken literally or as a metaphor, the aspiration is recognizable: use knowledge to rebuild a world with greater health, security and harmony with the environment.
IMS was founded in 2010 and is located in the iconic RCA Sarnoff Labs in Princeton, New Jersey. Sarnoff is the birthplace of television and modern electronics, much of which was based on cutting-edge luminescent materials.
IMS continues that materials tradition with a new generation of precisely engineered rare-earth crystals and the optical systems used to activate, measure and interpret them.
IMS intellectual property covers uniform particle synthesis and assembly, authentication signatures, and systems for identifying Intelligent Material from its engineered response.
Monodisperse particles and shape-directed self-assembly developed with the University of Pennsylvania.
Related claims involving up- and down-converting particles, polyhedral shape and organized assemblies.
Authentication using rise and decay characteristics of an engineered emission response.
IR-blocking inks incorporating rare-earth Intelligent Material for article and transaction-card authentication.
Methods and systems for identifying Intelligent Material from changes in emission response under controlled illumination.
The most powerful use of Intelligent Material is not a label on the product. It is becoming part of the product itself. At only a few parts per million in the finished fiber, the same crystal can help run the factory, trace the supply chain and protect the brand.
A global stretch-fiber customer uses Intelligent Material as a permanent optical identity inside its fiber. The crystal enters at the beginning of manufacturing and remains readable all the way into finished clothing.
Intelligent Material is added to an expensive process ingredient at 500 ppm. That ingredient is then targeted at about 1% of the fiber, leaving the crystal at only about 5 ppm in the fiber.
Before our technology, plants ran the ingredient at about 1.5% to maintain a safety margin above the 1% manufacturing threshold. By reading the uniform crystal signal at seven injection points, operators can now steer the process at about 1.05%.
Across 12 plants, reducing that safety margin cuts consumption of the expensive ingredient by roughly 30% and saves about $2 million per year.
Different plants, lines or pieces of equipment can carry different engineered signatures. If fiber later fails in the field, its embedded identity can help trace the product back through its manufacturing history and narrow the investigation to where it was made.
The marker is inside the material rather than attached as a removable label. A reader can verify genuine fiber as it moves from the manufacturer to mills, brands, finished garments and inspection points.
Brands and inspectors can test the material itself. The ability to verify genuine fiber helps discourage substitution, counterfeiting and unauthorized sourcing because the physical product carries its own machine-readable identity.
Operations value: signal strength can be quantitative, turning an embedded optical signature into a process-control measurement for concentration, mixing and manufacturing consistency.
Commercial value: the same persistent signature can support provenance, genuine-product verification, gray-market investigations and anti-counterfeit programs without adding a separate removable tag.
Paint, polymer, oil, ink, fiber, coating or another compatible formulation can become part of the information system itself. Instead of adding traceability after manufacturing, Intelligent Material can be designed into the product from the start, creating information that remains physically connected to the thing being made.
Most projects begin with the same questions: what does it cost, how safe is it, how much is needed, and how do you actually get material into a product? The short answers are below.
Intelligent Material is IMS's family of engineered rare-earth crystals designed to interact with light and other forms of energy in controlled ways. We can tune the host, dopants, concentration, size, morphology, surface chemistry, lifetime and other response characteristics around a specific application.
They are not commodity fillers, but many applications use very little material. Depending on the formulation, the useful loading can range from parts-per-million levels to a small percentage of the finished product.
Cost depends on composition, particle size, purity, core/shell architecture, functionalization, manufacturing scale and regulatory requirements. In many commercial systems, the value comes from the information the material adds rather than from using a large amount of it.
Many IMS materials are stable, inorganic rare-earth crystals, but safety must always be evaluated for the specific composition, particle size, coating, exposure route and intended use.
Industrial, consumer, medical, food-contact and biological applications can have very different requirements. IMS and NovaVera can provide application-specific handling information, SDS documentation and work with customers on the testing needed for a particular use. We do not assume that a material is safe for ingestion, inhalation or implantation without the appropriate validation.
Often less than people expect. Some authentication and process-control applications can be read at extremely low concentrations, while optical conversion, lighting, imaging or therapeutic applications may need much higher loading.
The right amount is determined by the signal you need, the optical path, the host material and the reader architecture.
Often, yes. Depending on the application, crystals can be incorporated into inks, coatings, polymers, fibers, adhesives, resins, liquids, ceramics, glass, microfluidic systems and other host materials.
The integration method matters. We work backward from the finished product so the particle size, surface chemistry and concentration are designed around the manufacturing process.
That is a core part of IMS's work. A customer can start with the behavior they need rather than with a crystal already sitting on a shelf.
We can tune excitation wavelength, emission wavelength, lifetime and decay, power-density response, particle size and shape, dopant combinations, core/shell structure, magnetic behavior and surface functionalization.
Rare-earth emission is highly photostable and does not behave like an organic fluorescent dye that gradually photobleaches under illumination. The crystals themselves also do not create the broad biological autofluorescence background seen in many fluorescent measurements.
That makes spectral selection and time-resolved detection especially useful when the signal has to be separated from a complex background.
In some architectures, yes. Phone-based readers can use the camera, integrated illumination, or a small optical accessory. The exact approach depends on the excitation wavelength and emission band.
Not every Intelligent Material formulation is directly readable by an unmodified smartphone, so we design the material and reader together when phone compatibility is important.
NovaVera Corporation is the commercialization arm for Intelligent Material. Commercial material supply, custom formulations, integration programs and product-development discussions can be handled through NovaVera.
You do not need to. Tell us what you are trying to measure, convert, identify, illuminate, authenticate or control. We can work backward from the physical problem to the material, optical system and readout.
Yes. Many projects involve more than the crystal. IMS develops and works with partners on illumination, filters, detectors, lifetime/time-decay measurement, spectroscopy, imaging, microfluidics and system integration.
Yes. IMS is the intellectual-property company behind the platform, and projects can involve material supply, custom development, licensing or a combination of those approaches. Commercialization is coordinated with NovaVera.
We work with companies, research organizations and government programs to engineer materials for specific technical problems.
Work with IMS