Dynamic plasmonic colour display

Plasmonic colour printing based on engineered metasurfaces has revolutionized colour display science due to its unprecedented subwavelength resolution and high-density optical data storage. However, advanced plasmonic displays... [ view full abstract ]

Plasmonic colour printing based on engineered metasurfaces has revolutionized colour display science due to its unprecedented subwavelength resolution and high-density optical data storage. However, advanced plasmonic displays with novel functionalities have remained in their infancy. Here we demonstrate a dynamic plasmonic colour display technique which enables all the aforementioned functionalities using catalytic magnesium metasurfaces. Controlled hydrogenation and dehydrogenation of the constituent magnesium nanoparticles, which serve as dynamic pixels, allow for plasmonic colour printing, tuning, erasing, and restoration of colour. In this work, we demonstrate a dynamic plasmonic display technique based on catalytic Mg metasurfaces. Different from other hydrogen-storage metals such as palladium (Pd) and yttrium, which are associated with poor optical response, Mg exhibits excellent plasmonic properties at high frequencies. For example, Mg nanostructures have been used for chiral sensing in the UV spectral range and for hydrogen sensing in the visible spectral range^1-4. Most importantly, the unique hydrogenation/dehydrogenation kinetics of Mg nanoparticles is ideally suited for creating dynamic plasmonic systems.