Customized nanomanufacturing of structural color images using inkj et on nanostructured foils

Structural colors based on optical nanostructures possess appealing advantages compared to conventional ink- or pigment-based colors. To apply structural colors in commercial products, one key challenge is the throughput of the nanomanufacturing technique for printing any custom-input color images in large area. Our recent work has demonstrated an up-scalable structural color printing technique named multilayer molded-ink-on-nanostructured-surface (M-MIONS) printing, which holds the promise for customized nanomanufacturing of structural colors for broad-range commercial applications. In this work, we present our recent progress in scaling up M-MIONS printing. We implemented low-cost nanostructured thin foils manufactured from industrial roll-to-roll nanoimprint as substrates. A regular desktop inkjet printer was implemented to rapidly print dielectric nanoparticle inks onto the subwavelength gratings on the foils. An office-use thermal laminator and regular hot-lamination films were applied to achieve the index-matching lamination. In addition, we significantly shortened the post-printing baking and also eliminated the time-consuming surface chemical treatment of the substrates. With these modifications, the production speed was significantly boosted by multiple times and the average material cost was reduced into a fraction, compared to our previous M-MIONS printing process. In our experiments, we successfully manufactured full-color patterns in the size of 100 cm² and the practical production speed can reach more than 10 images per hour. This progress paves the way towards industrial-scale printing of structural colors for commercial applications.