P-Ink: Intelligent Color

This work presents some of the recent research on photonic ink dubbed P-Ink, a hybrid material of a metallopolymer gel and a colloidal photonic crystal that enables intelligent color, namely color from the interaction of light with a periodic microstructure rather than color from the absorption or emission of light by a chromophore or fluorophore. In this context, structural color refers to the color of optically Bragg diffracted light from a three-dimensional photonic crystal, a periodic dielectric whose lattice dimensions are in the light scale. The intelligence in the color stems from the tunable lattice dimensions and refractive index contrast of the photonic crystal, which enables the full gamut of colors to be obtained from a single material. P-Ink therefore has the potential to revolutionize full color display technologies because most color displays use the standard tri-chromatic color mixing of television screens to produce different colors, whereas P-Ink changes the color of the screen through control over the intrinsic color in each pixel.