Biomimetic isotropic nanostructures for structural coloration
Abstract
We describe the self-assembly of biomimetic isotropic films which display structural color amenable to potential applications in coatings. Isotropic structures can produce color if there is a pronounced characteristic length-scale comparable to the wavelength of visible light and wavelength-independent scattering is suppressed.
Used in syntheses
Questions this source addresses
- How can we make structural color on a large scale?
- How closely can we copy the color-making structures found in nature?
- What tiny shapes can make colors out of light?
- Where do colors come from when there is no pigment?
- How do these self-assembled isotropic structures differ from the ordered branching architecture of butterfly wing-scale lamellae, and what does that mean for coating applications?
- How does colloidal self-assembly produce disordered but correlated nanostructures without long-range crystalline order?
- What length-scale condition allows an isotropic (non-crystalline) nanostructure to produce structural color?
- Why must wavelength-independent scattering be suppressed to achieve pure structural color rather than a whitened appearance?