The nanostructures of natural species
offer beautiful
visual appearances
with saturated and iridescent colors, and the question arises whether
we can reproduce or even create unique appearances with man-made metasurfaces.
However, harnessing the specular and diffuse light scattered by disordered
metasurfaces to create attractive and prescribed visual effects is
currently inaccessible. Here, we present an interpretive, intuitive,
and accurate modal-based tool that unveils the main physical mechanisms
and features defining the appearance of colloidal disordered monolayers
of resonant meta-atoms deposited on a reflective substrate. The model
shows that the combination of plasmonic and Fabry–Perot resonances
offers uncommon iridescent visual appearances, differing from those
classically observed with natural nanostructures or thin-film interferences.
We highlight an unusual visual effect exhibiting only two distinct
colors and theoretically investigate its origin. The approach can
be useful in the design of visual appearance with easy-to-make and
universal building blocks having a large resilience to fabrication
imperfections and potential for innovative coatings and fine-art applications.