Structural color printing and evaluation based on 3D printing

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this study is to modify the FDM 3D printer to print with polystyrene (PS) microspheres as the printing material, thus enabling bottom-up structural color printing and evaluating structural color printing. Design/methodology/approach This study chose a range of different heated bed temperatures to determine a suitable temperature for accelerating the self-assembly of photonic crystals and printing structural colors on various substrates. In addition, this study enhanced the structural color by doping PS microspheres with different contents of Acid Black 210 dye and evaluated the color-enhanced structural color by eye and spectrophotometer under different light sources. Findings The results show that the modified 3D printer can be used for structural color printing, and 50°C is determined as the heated bed temperature. There are significant differences in structural colors when printing under different color backgrounds and material substrates, and corresponding suitable substrates should be selected according to the application. The doping of PS microspheres with varying contents of dye results in different color levels of structural color. As with pigment colors, the visual perception of structural color varies when viewed under different light sources. Originality/value This paper proposes to print structural colors low-costly, analyze structural colors under substrate and light source conditions, and expand the structural color gamut by enhancing structural colors, which has positive implications for further research on structural colors as printing colors.

Iridescence Mimicking in Fabrics: A Ultraviolet/Visible Spectroscopy Study

“…In terms of the b* axis, samples coated with 170 and 250 nm PCs are slightly yellower, and sample coated with 190 nm PCs is slightly bluer. These results are in agreement with the study mentioned previously, where color under IA is greener and yellower when compared with color under D50 light source [9]. These color changes are almost imperceptible even by color coordinates analysis, where color differences (∆a and ∆b) in most cases are lower than 5 measuring units, in a total range of 256 units for each axle.…”

“…This is of highest importance to further understand PC color behavior in textiles and, to the authors knowledge, there are no such studies made for textiles. One of the few articles found in the literature report the usage different light source illumination of PCs (He and Lv, [9]), where polystyrene microspheres were 3D-printed onto a black cardboard substrate. The 240 nm PS microspheres presented a green color under a D65 light source, a bluish color under cool white fluorescent (CWF) illuminant, and a yellowish color under illuminant A (IA).…”

“…Depending on material choices for the PCs synthesis (polystyrene (PS) or silica (SiO 2 ) particles) and the substrate (glass, metallic, or fabric), structural colors with iridescent effects can occur due to angular resolved Bragg diffraction from the lattice planes [6]. PCs can be applied in ink-jet printing [7,8], 3D printing [9,10], lithography [11,12] and sensors [13,14], among others [15,16], to produce structural colors. They can also be applied in textiles, an area of research that had demonstrated great interest in the last decade [6,[17][18][19][20].…”

Modelling appearance printing : Acquisition and digital reproduction of translucent and goniochromatic materials

“…Spatial arrangement of particles ensures periodic variation of optical properties, and therefore creates special wavelength dependent conditions for light reflectance. Photonic crystals have been adopted for inkjet printing [103] and 3D printing [104,105]. In this work, we studied Poly(styrene-methyl methacrylate-acrylic acid) photonic crystals (PCs) as textile colorants.…”