High-speed laser writing of structural colors for full-color inkless printing

Abstract

It is a formidable challenge to simultaneously achieve wide-gamut, high-resolution, high-speed while low-cost manufacturability, long-term stability, and viewing-angle independence in structural colors for practical applications. The conventional nanofabrication techniques fail to match the requirement in low-cost, large-scale and flexible manufacturing. Processing by pulsed lasers can achieve high throughput while suffering from a narrow gamut of ~15% sRGB or angle-dependent colors. Here, we demonstrate an all-in-one solution for ultrafast laser-produced structural colors on ultrathin hybrid films that comprise an absorbent dielectric TiAlN layer coating on a metallic TiN layer. Under laser irradiation, the absorption behaviours of the TiAlN-TiN hybrid films are tailored by photothermal-induced oxidation on the topmost TiAlN. The oxidized films exhibit double-resonance absorption, which is due to the non-trivial phase shifts both at the oxide-TiAlN interface, and at the TiAlN-TiN interface. By varying the accumulated laser fluence to modulate the oxidation depth, angle-robust structural colors with unprecedented large-gamut of ~90% sRGB are obtained. The highest printing speed reaches 10 cm2/s and the highest resolution exceeds 10000 dpi. The durability of the laser-printed colors is confirmed by fastness examination, including salt spray, double-85, light bleaching, and adhesion tests. These features render our technique to be competitive for industrial applications.