Visualization of ultra-thin semi-transparent metallic films by wave simulations and ray-tracing rendering.

Plasmonic color generation describes structural color arising from resonant interaction between visible light and metallic nanostructures, causing selective frequencies of light to be scattered and/or absorbed [Kristensen et al. 2017; Sun and Xia 2003]. The perceived color from such metallic nanostructures is highly dependent on viewing angle and the color appearance can change with color of the viewing background. Plasmonic color generation is a rapidly emerging research area with potential advantages over conventional pigment printing technology including higher printing resolution and robustness, greater compatibility for integration and functionalization, and reduced resource requirements [Mudachathi and Tanaka 2017; Zhu et al. 2017]. Structural color from plasmonic nanostructures has already been used to improve security measures in currency notes and credit cards [Lee et al. 2018].