Plasmonic colour laser printing.

Area of Science:

• Nanophotonics
• Materials Science

Background:

• Plasmonic nanostructures offer advantages over dyes for color generation, including smaller pixel size and brighter, non-fading colors.
• Current fabrication methods like electron-beam lithography (EBL) and focused ion beam (FIB) are expensive, not scalable, and lack post-processing customization.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce a novel laser post-writing technique for creating customizable color patterns on nanoimprinted plasmonic metasurfaces.
• To demonstrate a scalable and cost-effective alternative to traditional plasmonic color printing methods.

Main Methods:

• Utilized laser pulses to induce localized heating, causing melting and reshaping of imprinted nanostructures on plasmonic metasurfaces.
• Varied laser pulse energy density to control surface morphology and tune plasmonic resonances, thereby generating different colors.

Main Results:

• Successfully printed primary colors using the laser post-writing method.
• Achieved a printing speed of 1 nanosecond per pixel and a resolution of up to 127,000 dots per inch (DPI).
• Demonstrated low power consumption, as low as 0.3 nanojoules per pixel.

Conclusions:

• The laser post-writing technique provides a scalable, high-resolution, and customizable approach for plasmonic color generation.
• This method overcomes the limitations of EBL and FIB, paving the way for advanced applications in color printing and nanophotonics.