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Plasmonic colour laser printing

Nature Nanotechnology volume 11, pages 325–329 (2016)Cite this article

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Abstract

Colour generation by plasmonic nanostructures1,2 and metasurfaces3,4 has several advantages over dye technology: reduced pixel area, sub-wavelength resolution and the production of bright and non-fading colours5. However, plasmonic colour patterns need to be pre-designed and printed either by e-beam lithography (EBL)6,7,8,9,10,11 or focused ion beam (FIB)12,13,14, both expensive and not scalable processes that are not suitable for post-processing customization. Here we show a method of colour printing on nanoimprinted plasmonic metasurfaces using laser post-writing. Laser pulses induce transient local heat generation that leads to melting and reshaping of the imprinted nanostructures15. Depending on the laser pulse energy density, different surface morphologies that support different plasmonic resonances leading to different colour appearances can be created. Using this technique we can print all primary colours with a speed of 1 ns per pixel, resolution up to 127,000 dots per inch (DPI) and power consumption down to 0.3 nJ per pixel.

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Figure 1: Plasmonic structures for colour printing.
Figure 2: Spectral and geometry analyses and numerical simulations.
Figure 3: Flexible and robust samples for colour printing and colour mixing.
Figure 4: Laser printing with sub-diffraction-limit resolution.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the European Commission through the FP7MMP Integrated project PLAST4FUTURE (NMP2-SE-2012-314345). The authors thank C. Smith and K. T. Sørensen for technical support and W. Yan, J. Clausen and S. Xiao for fruitful discussions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Micro- and Nanotechnology, Technical University of Denmark, Kongens Lyngby, DK-2800, Denmark

    Xiaolong Zhu, Christoph Vannahme, Emil Højlund-Nielsen & Anders Kristensen

  2. Department of Photonics Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, Kongens Lyngby, DK-2800, Denmark

    N. Asger Mortensen

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  1. Xiaolong Zhu
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  2. Christoph Vannahme
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  3. Emil Højlund-Nielsen
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  4. N. Asger Mortensen
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  5. Anders Kristensen
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Contributions

X.Z., N.A.M. and A.K. conceived the ideas. X.Z. and E.H.-N. fabricated the nanoimprinted samples. X.Z. performed the simulations. C.V. suggested and built the optical setup for laser printing. X.Z. and C.V. developed the codes. X.Z. implemented the laser printing and prepared the figures. A.K. and N.A.M. provided feedback on the experiments. All authors contributed to the writing of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Xiaolong Zhu, N. Asger Mortensen or Anders Kristensen.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Zhu, X., Vannahme, C., Højlund-Nielsen, E. et al. Plasmonic colour laser printing. Nature Nanotech 11, 325–329 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2015.285

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