Profile of an Independent and Growing Optical Security Company

As editor of Holography News®, I have followed, with some admiration, the activities of renowned Czech Republic optical innovators IQ Structures. So, as I made my plans to attend the ODDS Conference in Prague it made sense that I should try and visit their facilities to find out more about the company.

IQ Structures Building (© IQS)

On the morning of the first day of the ODDS conference, before Dr Alan Hodgson’s excellent seminar on using smartphones as authentication tools, I took the short 20-minute train trip north of Prague to the beautiful town of Rez and to the Nuclear Research Institute of Czech Academy of Science (Ustav Jaderneho Vyzkumu) – which, apart from having an active nuclear research reactor, is the production and administration centre for IQ Structures. The company has been based there almost from its foundation in 2012 and the Institute continues to make the perfect setting for a secure production facility, as was witnessed by the thorough entry procedure I had to pass through to gain access.