High-speed laser writing of structural colors for full-color inkless printing

It is a formidable challenge to simultaneously achieve wide-gamut, high-resolution, high-speed while low-cost manufacturability, long-term stability, and viewing-angle independence in structural colors for practical applications. The conventional nanofabrication techniques fail to match the requirement in low-cost, large-scale and flexible manufacturing. Processing by pulsed lasers can achieve high throughput while suffering from a narrow gamut of similar to 15% sRGB or angle-dependent colors. Here, we demonstrate an all-in-one solution for ultrafast laser-produced structural colors on ultrathin hybrid films that comprise an absorbent dielectric TiAlN layer coating on a metallic TiN layer. Under laser irradiation, the absorption behaviours of the TiAlN-TiN hybrid films are tailored by photothermal-induced oxidation on the topmost TiAlN. The oxidized films exhibit double-resonance absorption, which is due to the non-trivial phase shifts both at the oxide-TiAlN interface, and at the TiAlN-TiN interface. By varying the accumulated laser fluence to modulate the oxidation depth, angle-robust structural colors with unprecedented large-gamut of similar to 90% sRGB are obtained. The highest printing speed reaches 10cm(2)/s and the highest resolution exceeds 10000 dpi. The durability of the laser-printed colors is confirmed by fastness examination, including salt spray, double-85, light bleaching, and adhesion tests. These features render our technique to be competitive for industrial applications. Structural colours are of broad interest in recent years, yet the conventional nanofabrication techniques fail to match the requirement for large-scale manufacturing. Here, the authors demonstrate the use of pulsed lasers to write structural colours with widegamut, high-resolution, high-speed while low-cost manufacturability, long-term stability, and viewing-angle independence.

Automated summary

The authors demonstrate a solution for producing structural colors using ultrafast lasers on thin hybrid films. By controlling the absorption behavior of the oxide films, angle-robust structural colors with wide gamut and high resolution are achieved. This technique is competitive for industrial applications.