Customized Structural Color Filters by Pixel-Level Electrothermal Regulation

Reflective structural colors have backlight-free supremacy and can provide energy-efficient and environmental-friendly color production for many applications. However, they are hindered by the complex process and incorrect colors after fabrication. Here, a pixelated electrothermal oxidation technique is proposed that can precisely tailor and produce reflective structural colors covering the entire visible range, providing the possibility for customized structural color filter arrays from a titanium canvas. Furthermore, as a demonstration, a photonic-firework-like color filter array is achieved in a single step via thermal engineering. Based on this one-step-forming color array, a computational spectrometer is also realized featuring a resolvability of 10 nm and operating bandwidth covering the whole visible range. Considering its compactness and mass production capability, this method has numerous potential applications in, e.g., imaging, anti-counterfeiting, printing, color display, and spectroscopy.

Automated summary

Reflective structural colors offer backlight-free and energy-efficient color production, but face challenges in complex fabrication and color accuracy. A new pixelated electrothermal oxidation technique is proposed to precisely tailor reflective structural colors, enabling customized color filter arrays. By thermal engineering, a photonic-firework-like color filter array is achieved in a single step, and a computational spectrometer with a resolution of 10 nm is realized. With its compactness and mass production capability, this method has potential applications in imaging, anti-counterfeiting, printing, color display, and spectroscopy.