Abstract
Photochromic materials, which change their colours reversibly in response to light, can be applied to smart windows, displays and memories1,2,3. Conventional photochromic materials respond in a monochromatic way, so that multicolour photochromism has required several different materials or filters combined appropriately. If multicolour photochromism could be achieved with a simple material, photochromic devices would be find a greater number of applications, including a rewritable colour copy paper or electronic paper4 and a high-density multi-wavelength optical memory. Here we report multicolour photochromism of TiO2 films loaded with silver nanoparticles by photocatalytic means. Its colour, initially brownish-grey, changes under monochromatic visible light to almost the same colour as that of the light; the apparently uniform Ag–TiO2 film can be almost any colour. Behaviour similar to persistent hole-burning effects5,6 is also observed. The colour reverts to brownish-grey under ultraviolet light, and these processes are repeatable.
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Acknowledgements
We thank O. Sato, H. Tsunakawa, T. Itoh and Y. Kakegawa for help with experiments. This work was supported in part by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Priority Areas (Area No. 417 for T.T., Y.K. and A.F.) from the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture of Japan.
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Ohko, Y., Tatsuma, T., Fujii, T. et al. Multicolour photochromism of TiO2 films loaded with silver nanoparticles. Nature Mater 2, 29–31 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat796
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat796
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