Multiple Structural Coloring of Silk-Fibroin Photonic Crystals and Humidity-Responsive Color Sensing

In the biological world, numerous creatures such as butterfl ies, insects, and birds have exploited photonic structures to produce bicolor refl ections with important biofunctions in addition to unique brilliant structural coloration. Although the mimicking of bistructural color refl ection is possible, the fabrication involves a process of combined layer deposition techniques, which is complicated and less fl exible. Here, a bistructural color mimicking, based on silk fi broin, is reported using a simple and inexpensive self-assembly method. Silk-fi broin inverse opals with different spectral positions of bistructural color refl ection (i.e., ultraviolet and visible peaks, ultraviolet and near infrared peaks, and visible and near infrared peaks) are obtained by simply controlling their lattice constants. Furthermore, the inline and continuous tuning of the peak positions of bistructural color refl ection can be achieved by the humidity-induced cyclic contraction of silk fi broin. The potential applications of silk-fi broin photonic structures in eco-dying and multifunctional silk fabrics are also demonstrated.