Abstract
Biomimetic synthesis of amorphous photonic crystals (APCs) is a significant approach to obtain non-iridescent structural colors. However, the structural colors of artificially prepared APCs are dim or even white due to the influence of incoherent scattering. In this paper, we present an innovative method was proposed to combine APCs with black TiO2-x to construct non-iridescent structural color pigments with high visibility and photocatalytic activity. Due to absorption of incoherent scattered light by black TiO2-x, the color saturation of structural colors has been significantly increased. In addition, the utilization rate of photogenic carriers was effectively enhanced by slow light effect generated from pseudo-band gap of SiO2 APCs with TiO2-x absorbed full spectrum. The tone and color saturation of catalytic pigments are controlled by the diameter of SiO2 nanospheres and the ration of TiO2-x nanoparticles, which provides a controllable application study in color related fields such as artwork, environmental coatings and textiles.
Generation of intensity-tunable structural color from helical photonic crystals for full color reflective-type display
