1. Cost‐Effective, flexible, hydrophobic, and tunable structural color polymeric bragg reflector metastructures
- Author
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Pedro M. Resende, Ruy Sanz, Olga Caballero-Calero, Marisol Martín-González, European Commission, European Research Council, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (España), and Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (España)
- Subjects
Service (business) ,Materials science ,3D anodic aluminum oxide ,business.industry ,Polymers ,02 engineering and technology ,010402 general chemistry ,021001 nanoscience & nanotechnology ,Distributed Bragg reflector ,Hydrophobic ,7. Clean energy ,01 natural sciences ,Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics ,0104 chemical sciences ,Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials ,3D networks ,Polyethylene ,European commission ,Mimicking nature ,0210 nano-technology ,Telecommunications ,business ,Polymer infiltration - Abstract
The synthesis of flexible photonic materials, by sustainable and scalable methods, is proved to be a difficult task for the materials science and industrial communities. Alongside, the modern society has also grown a strong dependence on polymeric materials, demanding superpolymers that combine functionality and cost with superior after‐use properties. The path for accomplishing this aim is made possible by mimicking nature through the merging of self‐ordered nanostructures and a commodity thermoplastic, resorting to basic fabrication infrastructure. This work presents the development of a flexible material that exhibits tunable structural color due to its 3D polyethylene based nanonetwork. These nanonetworks are hydrophobic, and change color depending on the refractive index of the material filling their voids. This developed flexible metamaterial is projected to open opportunities for the fabrication of economically affordable (around 0.008 € cm−2) and solvent‐free photonic nanostructures with multipurpose applications such as sensing, energy saving, clothing, and photovoltaics, among others., M.M.‐G. acknowledges the financial support from the project TONALITy ERC POC665634 and INFANTE 201550E072. O.C.‐C. acknowledges fruitful discussion with Prof. G. Armelles. R.S. acknowledges the European Commission through the H2020‐MSCA‐IF project TONSOPS (Grant No. 706094). O.C.‐C. acknowledges financial support from Ramon y Cajal research grant (MINECO). The authors acknowledge the service from the X‐SEM Laboratory at IMN, and funding from MINECO under projectCSIC13‐4E‐1794 with support from EU (FEDER, FSE).
- Published
- 2018