Structural colouration of textiles with high colour contrast based on melanin-like nanospheres

The striking structural colour originated from photonic crystals (PCs) self-assembled with specific nanospheres has been applied in various industries. Structural chromogen with lifelike manifestations is also expected to become a novel colouration technology for textiles. However, the contrast of structural colour is usually affected by scattered light generated from nanospheres. In order to obtain high contrast structural colour on fabric substrates, the melanin-like nanospheres were prepared and applied to fabricate PCs on white fabric surface. The melanin-like PS@PDA nanospheres showed smooth surface and perfect sphericity, which assured the self-assembly of melanin-like nanospheres to form well-organized face-centred cubic and regularly close-packed arrays to exhibit brilliant structural colour. In addition, the phenomenon of double-sides structural colouration of fabric was explained via analysing the driving force of self-assembly of nanospheres in dispersion solution. It is found that the melanin-like nanospheres can replace black substrate to achieve high contrast structural colour on white fabric substrate and simplify the process of structural colouration of textiles because the dyeing process of fabric can be omitted. The feasible technique would promote the practical application of structural colour in textile field.