Cascaded encryption/decryption using digital polymer toward high-level information security

Encoding information in digital polymers has become a promising approach for data storage in recent years. High-level information security is crucial for practical application, which is still challenging in digital polymers due to the lack of efficient techniques. Herein, we proposed a cascaded encryption/decryption approach that uses Morse-coded digital polymers to encipher sequence information as well as molecular weight distribution (MWD) information. The MWD information could be deconvoluted in size exclusion chromatography (1st decryption), whereas the 2nd decryption was performed in tandem mass spectrometry. The correct information could only be accessed after two successive decryption processes, thus providing high-level information security. Furthermore, this cascaded strategy was applied to a printing ink formulation for multidimensional anti-counterfeiting applications toward high-value artwork. Digital polymers were blended with precise molecular weight distributions for cascaded data encryption/decryption. Secret data was encrypted into sequence segments (1st encryption) according to the mass fraction (2nd encryption) of these precise blends. The correct data could only be accessed by successively decrypting two keys using size exclusion chromatography and tandem mass spectrometry, thus provide extra secret level for data encryption. [Display omitted]