Structural color from pigment-loaded nanostructures
Université de Fribourg DOKPE
- Sai, Tianqi ETH Zürich
- Froufe-Pérez, Luis S. University of Fribourg
- Scheffold, Frank University of Fribourg
- Wilts, Bodo D. ORCID University of Salzburg
- Dufresne, Eric R. ORCID ETH Zürich
- 2023
Published in:
- Soft Matter. - Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC). - 2023, vol. 19, no. 40, p. 7717-7723
English
Color can originate from wavelength-dependence in the absorption of pigments or the scattering of nanostructures. While synthetic colors are dominated by the former, vivid structural colors found in nature have inspired much research on the latter. However, many of the most vibrant colors in nature involve the interactions of structure and pigment. Here, we demonstrate that pigment can be exploited to efficiently create bright structural color at wavelengths outside its absorption band. We created pigment-enhanced Bragg reflectors by sequentially spin-coating layers of poly-vinyl alcohol (PVA) and polystyrene (PS) loaded with β-carotene (BC). With only 10 double layers, we achieved a peak reflectance over 0.8 at 550 nm and normal incidence. A pigment-free multilayer made of the same materials would require 25 double layers to achieve the same reflectance. Further, pigment loading suppressed the Bragg reflector's characteristic iridescence. Using numerical simulations, we further show that similar pigment loadings could significantly expand the gamut of non-iridescent colors addressable by photonic glasses.
- Faculty
- Faculté des sciences et de médecine
- Department
- NCCR - Bio-Inspired Materials
- Language
-
- English
- Classification
- Physics
- License
-
Rights reserved
- Open access status
- green
- Identifiers
-
- DOI 10.1039/D3SM00961K
- ISSN 1744-683X
- Persistent URL
- https://folia.unifr.ch/global/documents/334011
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