Microscopic Interference Full-Color Printing Using Grayscale-Patterned Fabry-Perot Resonance Cavities

This study demonstrates a full-color printing concept based on the interference effect in pixelized metal-dielectric-metal Fabry-Perot (FP) resonance cavities. The pixel color for printing is determined by the thickness of the dielectric layer in each microscale FP cavity. Abundant colors with controllable brightness and saturation are achieved by varying both the thickness and the filling density of the FP cavities using grayscale lithography. Enabled by the wide color gamut, a vivid full-color image can be reproduced at the microscopic scale with high resolution by correlating the colors with the dimensional parameters of the FP cavities through a layout-generation algorithm. The colorization strategy based on interference effects provides a new opportunity to use artificial structures for color printing and also has the potential to be scaled up for large-volume application in consumable products using replica patterning techniques such as grayscale photolithography, nanoimprinting, and soft lithography.