Rapid fabrication of robust and bright colloidal amorphous arrays on textiles

Abstract

Angle-independent colloidal amorphous arrays (CAA) have attracted considerable research interest because of their fantastic advantages, such as being low-cost, noniridescent, and fadeless. However, the color of CAA coating is usually dim because of the incoherent scattering of latex spheres in the CAA coating. Moreover, weak interactive forces among the latex spheres in CAA coating lead to the mechanical strength of CAA being poor. This study proposes a low-cost and effective strategy to fabricate a high mechanical strength, brilliant, and noniridescent CAA coating within hours on fabric, pretreated by dopamine prepolymer and therefore possessing a highly adhesive property. Consequently, the CAA coating can be adhered tightly to fabric. In addition, with the improvement of the self-assembly temperature of latex spheres, dopamine prepolymer can flow and penetrate into the voids of latex spheres in the CAA coating and further polymerize into highly adhesive polydopamine (PDA), and the latex spheres in the CAA coating can be tightly bonded together by PDA, meaning that the prepared CAA coating possesses robust mechanical strength. Furthermore, black PDA can enhance and highlight the color visibility of the CAA coating, where brilliant and bright CAA coatings are achieved through the penetration of black PDA into the CAA coating. The fabrication of a robust and bright CAA coating makes the practical application of CAA dye possible.