Flexible Plastic Industrial-Scale Photonic Crystals for Functional Colour

色彩在每一种消费品中的使用是无处不在的。然而，随着人们对环境的日益关注，传统染料的使用正变得有问题。这为制造色彩开辟了新的机会，通过雕刻出不到百万分之一米的材料，由无害的成分建造。此外，结构色(虹彩、棱镜、多色调或发光)的新可能性在竞争激烈的市场上普遍具有吸引力，如移动电子、时尚和汽车/航空工业。我们发明了一种新的方法来制造具有诱人结构色的塑料薄膜，可以扩大到工业生产水平。它的基础是周期性地排列具有不同光密度的堆叠纳米球，称为3D光子晶体。到目前为止，还没有办法制造工业规模的廉价光子晶体。我们的方法是基于制造塑料球体前驱体，这些塑料球体前驱体可以被加热和挤压在一起，使它们相互滑动，形成完美的填充阵列。通过在球体之间添加微小的纳米颗粒(尺寸小数百倍)，我们可以制造出种类繁多的新材料或纤维，这些材料或纤维具有“智能”的颜色。例如，薄膜是有弹性的，当它们被拉伸或弯曲时，它们会急剧改变颜色。为了实现我们发现的可能性，我们需要找到如何正确控制聚合物纳米颗粒的剪切组装，方法是在合理的规模上测试挤出过程，同时通过光学测量它是如何发生的。我们还需要开发挤出纤维的方法，这些纤维可以用来制造彩虹面料。只有当我们详细了解这些机制时，我们才会知道足够多的知识，以便在进一步投资于商业制造之前，将生产扩大到工业界希望看到的水平。我们还可以制作各种更耐人寻味的电影，包括那些发光不同颜色的电影，或者是具有磁性的电影。我们还需要展示这些电影可能会如何分解，看看在广泛的基础上发布这些材料可能会引发什么环境问题。最后，我们需要与一些大公司合作，为我们应该专注于哪些特定的应用制定一个计划。每个我们展示这些橡胶彩虹膜的人，都想要一件带走它们的东西。我们希望通过将我们的纳米材料研究和开发商业化，能够向每个人提供薄膜。

The use of colour in every consumer product is ubiquitous. However with increasing concern for the environment, the use of traditional dyes is becoming problematic. This has opened up new opportunities in producing colour by carving out materials at scales smaller than a millionth of a metre, built of components which are benign. In addition, the new possibilities available for structural colours (iridescent, prismatic, multi-hue, or luminescent) are universally attractive in competitive marketplaces such as mobile electronics, fashion, and automotive/airline industries.We have invented a new process for making plastic films which have appealing structural colours, that can be scaled up to industrial production levels. It is based on making periodic arrangements of stacked nano-spheres with a different optical density to their surroundings, called 3D photonic crystals. Until now, there has been no way to make industrial-scale cheap photonic crystals. Our method is based on making plastic sphere precursors which can be heated and extruded together in such a way that they slide over each other into perfectly packed arrays. By adding tiny nano-particles (hundreds of times smaller in size) in between the spheres we can make an enormous variety of new sorts of materials or fibres which have 'smart' colour. For instance, the films are elastic and they drastically change colour when they are stretched, or are bent.In order to realise the possibilities in our discoveries, we need to find out how to properly control this shearing-assembly of polymer nanoparticles, by testing out the extrusion on a reasonable scale while measuring optically how it is taking place. We also need to develop ways to extrude fibres that could be used for making iridescent fabrics. Only when we understand the mechanisms in detail will we know enough to scale up production to the level that industry wants to see before investing further in commercial manufacture. We can also make a variety of even more intriguing films, including ones which glow with different colours, or are magnetic. We also need to show how the films might decompose to see what environmental issues might be raised by releasing such material on a widespread basis. Finally we need to develop a plan for which particular applications that we should concentrate on, in collaboration with a number of large companies.Everyone who we show these rubbery iridescent films to, wants a piece to take away with them. We want to be able to provide films to everyone, by commercialising our nanomaterials research and development.