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Updated: May 16, 2026

Planar and Three-Dimensional Printing of Conductive Inks
Published on: December 9, 2011
Structural Color Inkjet Printing With Mie-Resonant Silicon Nanoparticles
Hiroto Yamana1, Haruki Tanaka1, Hiroshi Sugimoto1
1Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Kobe University, Kobe, Japan.
None:
Inkjet printing of silicon nanoparticle (Si NP) inks and their inherent color asymmetry in reflection and transmission is demonstrated. The optical response of Si NP-dispersed films was initially analyzed using Monte Carlo simulations, which elucidated the physical origin of the asymmetric color appearance. Guided by these theoretical insights, water-based Si NP inks incorporating an acrylic resin were formulated and applied to inkjet printing. The printed films exhibited vivid structural colors with pronounced differences between their reflective and transmissive hues. Furthermore, multicolor patterns with tunable optical asymmetry were produced by employing Si NPs of different diameters. These results highlight the potential of Si NPs as scalable structural-color pigments for multicolor dichroic decorations in applications such as art, anti-counterfeiting, and semitransparent smart windows.
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