Large Area Plasmonic Color Palettes with Expanded Gamut Using Colloidal Self-Assembly

Optical resonances in metallic nanostructures are promising in enabling high-resolution plasmonic color prints, color filters, and in rendering colors for plastic consumer products. However, nanostructure patterning approaches have relied on charged-particle beam lithography, with limited throughput. For the purpose of visually evaluating colors spanning a large parameter space, it is important to develop a rapid and cost-effective approach to patterning large areas. The speed at which the parameter space is explored experimentally needs to be comparable to the time it takes to run full electromagnetic simulations. Here, we used a bottom up approach to cost-effectively create periodic nanostructures on centimeter-scale samples. Upon further processing, this approach produced more complex geometries, such as rings and domes, compared to the standard structures consisting of metal disks. By adjusting various geometric parameters, vivid colors with an expanded gamut were obtained.