Structural colors, resulting from the interaction of light with nanostructured materials rather than pigments, present a promising avenue for diverse applications ranging from ink-free printing to optical anti-counterfeiting. Achieving structural colors with high purity and brightness over large areas and at low costs is beneficial for many practical applications, but still remains a challenge for current designs. Here, we introduce a novel approach to realizing large-scale structural colors in layered thin film structures that are characterized by both high brightness and purity. Unlike conventional designs relying on single Fabry–Pérot cavity resonance, our method leverages coupled resonance between adjacent cavities to achieve sharp and intense transmission peaks with significantly suppressed sideband intensity. We demonstrate this approach by designing and experimentally validating transmission-type red, green, and blue colors using an Ag/SiO2/Ag/SiO2/Ag configuration on fused silica substrate. The measured spectra exhibit narrow resonant linewidths (full width at half maximum ∼60 nm), high peak efficiencies (>40 %), and well-suppressed sideband intensities (∼0 %). In addition, the generated color can be easily tuned by adjusting the thickness of SiO2 layer, and the associated color gamut coverage shows a wider range than many existing standards. Moreover, the proposed design method is versatile and compatible with various choices of dielectric and metallic layers. For instance, we demonstrate the production of angle-robust structural colors by utilizing high-index Ta2O5 as the dielectric layer. Finally, we showcase a series of printed color images based on the proposed structures. The coupled-cavity-resonance architecture presented here successfully mitigates the trade-off between color brightness and purity in conventional layered thin film structures and provides a novel and cost-effective route towards the realization of large-scale and high-performance structural colors.

中文翻译：

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通过耦合腔共振在层状薄膜结构中产生大规模高纯度和亮度的结构颜色


由光与纳米结构材料而不是颜料相互作用产生的结构色为从无墨水印刷到光学防伪等各种应用提供了一条有前途的途径。以低成本在大面积上实现高纯度和亮度的结构色对许多实际应用都是有益的，但对于当前的设计来说仍然是一个挑战。在这里，我们介绍了一种在具有高亮度和纯度特征的层状薄膜结构中实现大规模结构色彩的新方法。与依赖于单个 Fabry-Pérot 腔共振的传统设计不同，我们的方法利用相邻腔之间的耦合共振来实现尖锐而强烈的传输峰，并显着抑制了边带强度。我们通过在熔融石英衬底上使用 Ag/SiO2/Ag/SiO2/Ag 配置设计和实验验证透射型红色、绿色和蓝色来演示这种方法。测得的光谱表现出较窄的谐振线宽（半峰处的全宽 ∼60 nm）、高峰效率 （>40 %） 和抑制良好的边带强度 （∼0 %）。此外，通过调整 SiO2 层的厚度，可以很容易地调整生成的颜色，并且相关的色域覆盖范围比许多现有标准显示的范围更广。此外，所提出的设计方法是通用的，并且与各种电介质层和金属层的选择兼容。例如，我们展示了通过使用高折射率 Ta2O5 作为介电层来产生角度稳健的结构色。最后，我们展示了一系列基于拟议结构的印刷彩色图像。 这里介绍的耦合腔共振结构成功地减轻了传统多层薄膜结构中颜色亮度和纯度之间的权衡，并为实现大规模和高性能结构色彩提供了一种新颖且具有成本效益的途径。