Lithography-free plasmonic color printing with femtosecond laser on semicontinuous silver films

TL;DR

This paper presents a lithography-free method for plasmonic color printing using femtosecond laser processing on semicontinuous silver films, achieving a broad, stable color range with high resolution suitable for practical applications.

Contribution

It introduces a novel femtosecond laser post-processing technique on semicontinuous silver films to enhance color gamut and stability without lithography, enabling high-resolution, durable plasmonic color printing.

Findings

Achieved a broad color range from blue to yellow with femtosecond laser processing.

Demonstrated long-term stability and non-fading colors with optimized overcoating.

Produced structures with a spatial resolution of approximately 0.3 mm or less.

Abstract

Plasmonic color printing with semicontinuous metal films is a lithography-free, non-fading, and environment-friendly method of generation of bright colors. Such films are comprised of metal nanoparticles, which resonate at different wavelengths upon light illumination depending on the size and shape of the nanoparticles. To achieve an experimentally demonstrated structure that was optimized in terms of broader color range and increased stability, variable Ag semicontinuous metal films were deposited on a metallic mirror with a sub-wavelength-thick dielectric spacer. Femtosecond laser post-processing was then introduced to extend the color gamut through spectrally induced changes from blue to green, red, and yellow. Long-term stability and durability of the structures were addressed to enable non-fading colors with an optimized overcoating dielectric layer. The thickness of the proposed designs is on the order of 100 nanometers, and it can be deposited on any substrate. These structures generate a broad range of long-lasting colors in reflection that can be applied to real-life artistic or technological applications with a spatial resolution on the order of 0.3 mm or less.