Controlling the Color of Plasmonic Substrates with Inkjet Printing

Abstract

This study introduces a versatile method for modifying the optical properties of plasmonic substrates by inkjet printing of commercially available, transparent inks with various refractive indices. The large-scale and cost-efficient process is demonstrated on tilted aluminum nanolamellas. They show vivid and bright colors based on a Fano resonance, which is highly susceptible to the surrounding material. Furthermore, color rendering can be made strongly angle-dependent and asymmetric, which is in contrast to the nonvariable color generation enabled by conventional inkjet printing.