Researchers at Linköping University have developed a method that may lead to new types of displays based on structural colors. The discovery opens the way to cheap and energy-efficient color displays and electronic labels. The study has been published in the scientific journal Advanced Materials.
July 6,2021 Researchers at Linköping University have developed a method that may lead to new types of displays based on structural colors. The discovery opens the way to cheap and energy-efficient color displays and electronic labels. The study has been published in the scientific journal Advanced Materials. We usually think of colors as created by pigments, which absorb light at certain wavelengths such that we perceive color from other wavelengths that are scattered and reach our eyes. That’s why leaves, for example, are green and tomatoes red. But colors can be created in other ways, and some materials appear colored due to their structure. Structural colors can arise when light is internally reflected inside the material on a scale of nanometers. This is usually referred to as interference effects. An example found in nature are peacock feathers, which are fundamentally brown but acquire their characteristic blue-green sheen from small structural features. Researchers at Linköping University have developed a new and simple method to create structural colors for use with reflective color displays. The new method may enable manufacturing of thin and lightweight displays with high energy-efficiency for a broad range of applications.
