Deep learning-assisted structural color inverse design: a perspective

Structural color, a special color generated by the interaction of visible light with nanostructures, has attracted significant research interest and industrial attention due to its promising advantages of long-term stability, spatial resolution, sustainability, and multi-functionality. The rapid development of artificial structural coloration has also facilitated extensive applications, including colored filters, coatings, high-resolution color printing, information encryption, sensing, etc. A critical challenge in these applications is how to design nanostructures with the desired color properties. Recently, deep learning has emerged as a powerful tool for the inverse design of structural color, demonstrating superior performance over traditional optimization-based methods. However, current approaches have not yet fully exploited the capabilities of deep learning. In this perspective, we hope to fill this gap by giving a summary of current research frontiers and providing insights into how deep learning can be further leveraged to advance the structural color design, from basic representations of colors and structures, to novel structural colors empowered by deep learning, and also pointing out new opportunities that deep learning can potentially bring to this research domain. We hope this perspective can inspire new ideas and further development for structural color design in the future.