Nanoscale printing breakthrough creates two colours per pixel

Scientists have developed a new form of high-resolution 'printing' which could have wide-ranging applications in data storage, anti-counterfeiting measures, and digital imaging. Dr Alasdair Clark discusses plasmonic colour New research from the University of Glasgow, published today (Wednesday 20 September) in the journal Advanced Functional Materials , outlines how engineers have developed nano-scale plasmonic colour filters that display different colours depending on the orientation of the light which hits it. Essentially, this new technique allows the 'printing' of two entirely different, but exceptionally detailed, full-colour images within the same surface area - something which has never been done before using 'structural colour' techniques. Instead of relying on dyes and pigments, as in traditional printing, structural colour uses specially structured nanomaterials to render colours. The nanomaterials allow for much higher-resolution prints which do not fade over time. A typical printed image in a magazine, for example, might consist of around 300 coloured dots per inch of page, or 300 DPI. A page 'printed' with structural colour techniques, however, could reach a resolution of 100,000 DPI or more.