Structural colors with scalable disordered plasmonics

Abstract

Structural colors are often associated with periodic photonic structures, yet many natural systems achieve vivid and stable appearance without strict periodicity. Motivated by this, we present scalable disordered plasmonics as a route to structural colors that are both manufacturable and functional. We treat disorder not as an imperfection but as a tunable statistical design parameter that governs (i) far-field color formation and (ii) near-field energy localization [1]. This duality enables metasurfaces that appear uniform to the eye/camera while remaining optically stochastic at the nanoscale, supporting color-based devices beyond passive appearance. We realize wafer-scale disordered plasmonic metasurfaces through lithography-free fabrication, including electrostatic nanoparticle assembly [2] and physical shadow growth [3], forming nanoparticle on mirror architectures. Building on the “uniform far-field color + stochastic near-field hotspots” platform, we discuss color as information, where structural-color readout serves as a system-level interface for visualization. We highlight secure photonics in which uniform macroscopic colors coexist with unclonable stochastic scattering fingerprints for physical authentication [1], and briefly outline emerging directions toward visual imaging applications, such as label-free bioimaging [4] and other photonic devices.