Mussel-inspired polydopamine coatings for large-scale and angle-independent structural colors

Structural colors are in increasing demand in many fields such as color displays, sensor devices, and anti-counterfeiting labels. Herein, large-scale and angle-independent structural colors were constructed from polydopamine (PDA) coatings with a high refractive index and uniformity. This strategy can be utilized to facilely fabricate various color patterns. These structural colors also display high solvent resistance and excellent universality to a series of substrates. Moreover, stimuli-responsive structural colors can be easily synthesized via the co-deposition of PDA with poly(N-isopropylacryl-amide). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that structural colors from PDA-based coatings have been reported.