Plasmonic Structural-Color Thin Film With a Wide Reception Angle and Strong Retro-Reflectivity

Abstract

We propose a plasmonic structural color in the form of a thin film with a monolayer of randomly dispersed silver nanoshells. By employing spatially isotropic optical dipole antenna nanoshells to achieve efficient couplings to obliquely incident field and by utilizing local frustration and interference of randomly dispersed scatterer phases, we successfully introduce plasmonic-driven unique traits of retro-reflection as an example of a plasmonic structural color. As compared to the natural counterpart, Morpho rhetenor, a much wider reception angle, up to 70 degrees, and a stronger retro-reflectivity of 35-45% are achieved.