Plasmonic color generation offers several advantages but is also limited by the cost and availability of noble metals like gold. In this work, we present color-tunable metasurfaces with high chromaticity and reflectivity consisting of an aluminum mirror, a dielectric spacer, and a plasmonic nanohole array in copper. Copper is shown to be an excellent alternative to gold when properly protected from oxidation and makes it possible to generate a wide RGB gamut covering 27% of the standard RGB. By patterning the metasurfaces into microscale pixel triplets, color photos can be well reproduced with high resolution over wafer-sized areas. Further, we demonstrate active modulation of the reflected intensity using an electrochromic conductive polymer deposited on top of the nanostructures by screen printing. This technology opens up for ultrathin and flexible reflective displays in full color, that is, plasmonic electronic paper, compatible with large-scale sustainable production.

C hemicals, including pharmaceuticals, are necessary for health, agriculture and food production, industrial production, economic welfare, and many other aspects of modern life. However, their widespread use has led to the presence of many different chemicals in the water cycle (1, 2), from which they may enter the food chain (3, 4). The use of chemicals will further increase with growth, health, age, and living standard of the human population. At the same time, the need for clean water will also increase, including treated wastewater for food production and high-purity water for manufacturing electronics and pharmaceuticals. Climate change is projected to further reduce water availability in sufficient quantity and quality. Considering the limits of effluent treatment, there is an urgent need for input prevention at the source and for the development of chemicals that degrade rapidly and completely in the environment.

Plasmonic structural colors have recently received a lot of attention. For many applications there is a need to actively tune the colors after preparing the nanostructures, preferably with as strong changes in the optical response as possible. However, to date, there is a lack of systematic investigations on how to enhance contrast in electrically induced color modulation. In this work we implement electrochromic films with plasmonic metasurfaces and compare systematically organic and inorganic materials, with the primary aim to maximize brightness and contrast in a reflective color display. We show nanostructures with good chromaticity and high polarization-insensitive reflectivity (∼90%) that are electrochemically stable in a nonaqueous solvent. Methods are evaluated for reliable and uniform electropolymerization of the conductive polymer dimethylpropylenedioxythiophene (PProDOTMe2) on gold. The resulting organic films are well-described by Lambert–Beer formalism, and the highest achievable contrast is easily determined in transmission mode. The optical properties of the inorganic option (WO3) require full Fresnel models due to thin film interference, and the film thickness must be carefully selected in order to maintain the chromaticity of the metasurfaces. Still, the optimized fully inorganic device reaches the highest contrast of approximately 60% reflectivity change for all primary colors. The switching time is about an order of magnitude faster for the organic films (hundreds of ms). The bistability is very long (hours) for the inorganic devices and comparable for the polymers, which makes the power consumption essentially zero for maintaining the same state. Finally, we show that switching of the primary colors in optimized devices (both organic and inorganic) provides almost twice as high brightness and contrast compared to existing reflective display technologies with RGB subpixels created by color filters.

The possibility of actively controlling structural colors has recently attracted a lot of attention, in particular for new types of reflective displays (electronic paper). However, it has proven challenging to achieve good image quality in such devices, mainly because many subpixels are necessary and the semitransparent counter electrodes lower the total reflectance. Here we present an inorganic electrochromic nanostructure based on tungsten trioxide, gold, and a thin platinum mirror. The platinum reflector provides a wide color range and makes it possible to “reverse” the device design so that electrolyte and counter electrode can be placed behind the nanostructures with respect to the viewer. Importantly, this makes it possible to maintain high reflectance regardless of how the electrochemical cell is constructed. We show that our nanostructures clearly outperform the latest commercial color e-reader in terms of both color range and brightness.

Reflective displays or “electronic paper” technologies provide a solution to the high energy consumption of emissive displays by simply utilizing ambient light. However, it has proven challenging to develop electronic paper with competitive image quality and video speed capabilities. Here, the first technology that provides video speed switching of structural colors with high contrast over the whole visible is shown. Importantly, this is achieved with a broadband‐absorbing polarization‐insensitive electrochromic polymer instead of liquid crystals, which makes it possible to maintain high reflectivity. It is shown that promoting electrophoretic ion transport (drift motion) improves the switch speed. In combination with new nanostructures that have high surface curvature, this enables video speed switching (20 ms) at high contrast (50% reflectivity change). A detailed analysis of the optical signal during switching shows that the polaron formation starts to obey first order reaction kinetics in the video speed regime. Additionally, the system still operates at ultralow power consumption during video speed switching (<1 mW cm−2) and has negligible power consumption (<1 µW cm−2) in bistability mode. Finally, the fast switching increases device lifetime to at least 107 cycles, an order of magnitude more than state‐of‐the‐art.

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Abstract. Pesticides applied onto agricultural fields are frequently found in adjacent rivers. To what extent and along which pathways they are transported is influenced by intrinsic pesticide properties such as sorption and degradation. In the environment, incomplete degradation of pesticides leads to the formation of transformation products (TPs), which may differ from the parent compounds regarding their intrinsic fate characteristics. Thus, the export processes of TPs in catchments and streams may also be different. In order to test this hypothesis, we extended a distributed hydrological model by the fate and behaviour of pesticides and transformation products and applied it to a small, well-monitored headwater catchment in Switzerland. The successful model evaluation of three pesticides and their TPs at three sampling locations in the catchment enabled us to estimate the quantity of contributing processes for pollutant export. Since all TPs were more mobile than their parent compounds (PCs), they exhibited larger fractions of export via subsurface pathways. However, besides freshly applied pesticides, subsurface export was found to be influenced by residues of former applications. Export along preferential flow pathways was less dependent on substance fate characteristics than soil matrix export, but total soil water flow to tile drains increased more due to preferential flow for stronger sorbing substances. Our results indicate that runoff generation by matrix flow to tile drains gained importance towards the end of the modelling period whereas the contributions from fast surface runoff and preferential flow decreased. Accordingly, TPs were to a large extent exported under different hydrological conditions than their PCs, due to their delayed formation and longer half-lives. Thus, not only their different intrinsic characteristics but also their delayed formation could be responsible for the fact that TPs generally took different pathways than their PCs. We suggest that these results should be considered in risk assessment for the export of agricultural chemicals to adjacent rivers and that models should be extended to include both PCs and TPs.