Multidimensional structural coloration from hierarchically designed plasmonic structures

Abstract

We propose a photonic strategy for multidimensional structural coloration that responds to varying illumination conditions. Both theoretical and experimental results verified that the combination of a metal/dielectric/metal cavity with a one-dimensional (1D) metal grating can increase the degree of freedom of structural coloration. We fabricated Ag/MgF2/Ag cavities coupled to 1D Ag gratings (pitches of 400, 570, and 800 nm) and obtained their photonic band dispersions (i.e., angle-resolved reflectance spectra) to unravel their mode characteristics. The 1D Ag grating and Ag/MgF2/Ag cavity induced surface plasmon polariton (SPP) and Fabry–Perot cavity modes, respectively. Notably, only a cavity mode emerged in the s-polarization and gradually blueshifted with increasing angle, whereas in the p-polarization, both SPP and cavity modes appeared and shifted oppositely with changes in the angle, leading to intricate color patterns at different wavelengths, angles, and polarizations. To further understand the effect of each mode upon structural coloration, we obtained the distribution of electric field intensity using rigorous coupled-wave analysis simulation, which identified multiple photonic bands in the p-polarization as various SPP-mediated hybrid modes.