Plasmonic color metasurfaces fabricated by a high speed roll-to-roll method

Abstract

Lab-scale plasmonic color printing using nano-structured and subsequently metallized surfaces have been demonstrated to provide vivid colors. However, upscaling these structures for large area manufacturing is extremely challenging due to the requirement of nanometer precision of metal thickness. In this study, we have investigated a plasmonic color meta-surface design that can be easily upscaled. We have demonstrated the feasibility of fabrication of these plasmonic color surfaces by a high-speed roll-to-roll method, comprising roll-to-roll extrusion coating at 10 m min creating a polymer foil having 100 nm deep pits of varying sub-wavelength diameter and pitch length. Subsequently this polymer foil was metallized and coated also by high-speed roll-to-roll methods. The perceived colors have high tolerance towards the thickness of the metal layer, when this thickness exceeds the depths of the pits, which enables the robust high-speed fabrication. This finding can pave the way for plasmonic meta-surfaces to be implemented in a broader range of applications such as printing, memory, surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS), biosensors, flexible displays, photovoltaics, security, and product branding.

Resonant laser printing of bi-material metasurfaces: from plasmonic to photonic optical response

“…4). Structural colors based on metal or semi-conductor metasurfaces [25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37] have huge potential for use in surface decorations [7,38] and color filters [39][40][41] and have already been upscaled using roll-to-roll methods [42]. Our bi-material metasurface can be manipulated using DRLP to draw any desired image (Fig.…”

Aluminium metal–insulator–metal structure fabricated by the bottom-up approach

“…15,16 In the present study, we focus on an abundant and inexpensive metal, Al, that exhibits plasmon resonance in the entire visible-light region 17 and is stabilized by a natural oxide protective lm. 18 Recently, Al plasmonic colors based on metal-insulatormetal (MIM) structures [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26] composed of a bottom metal layer, middle insulator layer, and top metal nanostructure have been reported. However, as far as we know, no mass production method for Al MIM structures has been reported.…”

Plasmonic color printing based on third-order gap surface plasmons [Invited]

“…Moreover, complex fabrication facilities like atomic layer deposition or wafer bonding are required for dielectric materials. To fulfill high-throughput demands for color printing, methods like imprint lithography, roll-to-roll printing and alternative methods of laser writing and laser post-processing have been studied [26,[36][37][38][39]. Specifically, fabrication-wise less complicated structures like polycrystalline silicon for holograms have been studied for manufacture of small size meta-elements, however, these studies are restricted to few types of metasurfaces [40].…”