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Quantum Base, a quantum security startup based at Lancaster University, has secured a grant to bring its new authentication tag to market.

The tag, which Quantum Base claims is 100% secure, can be used to protect anything from pharmaceutical products and training shoes to mobile phones and other devices.

Quantum Base will bring the tech to market with a grant from the Growth Fund run by Appleyard Lees, the UK and European patent and trade mark attorneys with offices in Manchester, Macclesfield, Halifax and Leeds.

The Quantum-ID (Q-ID) technology developed by Quantum Base, a Lancaster University spin-out company, generates an identity with a unique arrangement of atoms that cannot be copied, cloned or simulated. Each ID tag is 1/1000th the width of a hair and costs 1p to produce.

Four years into the development process, Quantum Base is now working with Appleyard Lees to secure patents on both Q-ID and a wider portfolio of high-tech security products.

Quantum Base said it is already holding discussions with a number of international brands and manufacturers to start product trials.

The co-founder of Quantum Base, Phil Speed, said: “Not since the arrival of the microprocessor 30 years ago will anything have as significant an impact on the consumer technology landscape as quantum technologies.

“As our IP partner and in granting us their Growth Fund grant Appleyard Lees is enabling us to take what is a real world first and a great British scientific invention and to begin to commercialise it on a truly global scale.“

He continued: “The world we live in today is connected in a million different ways by technology and yet we still haven’t managed to find a 100% secure way to protect our data, transactions and conversations – passwords can be cracked, signatures forged, products faked.

“Our quantum security solutions can be incorporated into any product and are guaranteed by the laws of physics to be 100% provably secure.“

Richard Bray, a partner at Appleyard Lees, said: “It is really very rare to be working with a spin-out like Quantum Base operating in this highly technical area, and it’s particularly special to be involved right from the outset.

“This means that I really do feel part of the team, and can help them in ways that might have been difficult or impossible had I been involved much later on in the project.“

Quantum Base is a “great example” of how intellectual property, or IP, is important to any business, according to Richard.

He continued: “The Appleyard Lees Growth Fund allows us to help such new businesses at these crucial early stages, and in return we hopefully get to help the business grow and develop, and build strong, long term relationships.“