Rewritable color nanoprints in antimony trisulfide films.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 33328223.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1126/sciadv.abb7171 and PMC identifier 7744068.
- Licence recorded as CC BY-NC.
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Abstract
Materials that exhibit large and rapid switching of their optical properties in the visible spectrum hold the key to color-changing devices. Antimony trisulfide (Sb<sub>2</sub>S<sub>3</sub>) is a chalcogenide material that exhibits large refractive index changes of ~1 between crystalline and amorphous states. However, little is known about its ability to endure multiple switching cycles, its capacity for recording high-resolution patterns, nor the optical properties of the crystallized state. Unexpectedly, we show that crystalline Sb<sub>2</sub>S<sub>3</sub> films that are just 20 nm thick can produce substantial birefringent phase retardation. We also report a high-speed rewritable patterning approach at subdiffraction resolutions (>40,000 dpi) using 780-nm femtosecond laser pulses. Partial reamorphization is demonstrated and then used to write and erase multiple microscale color images with a wide range of colors over a ~120-nm band in the visible spectrum. These solid-state, rapid-switching, and ultrahigh-resolution color-changing devices could find applications in nonvolatile ultrathin displays.