Ink is one of those things I don’t think about very mush. It’s just there, in all its pretty colors.
But, obviously, there is some seriously interesting chemistry going on.
This spring researchers down the block at the University of Illinois report on some interesting “tunable” ink [1]. Depending on how it is laid down, it is a different color.
Cool.
The material is called “bottlebrush block copolymer photonic crystals”, which is a great name for a band. It is laid down by a 3D printer head on a headed surface.
If I understand correctly, the color depends on the speed of the pen and the temperature of the surface.
These factors change the structure of the resulting crystal, which interacts with light to create the apparent color.
I gather that these differences are very fiddly, so it takes some clever work to control the results precisely. As they comment, this is done through a “high level of hardware/software integration” ([1], p. 2), which is our wheelhouse here at Illinios.
Give me source code and a place to stand, and I will move the Universe.
Suck it, Archimedes.
The current demo is just a start. The colors are limited, and printing is pretty crude. But this is a really promising way to go.
Nice work, all!.
- Bijal B. Patel, Dylan J. Walsh, Do Hoon Kim, Justin Kwok, Byeongdu Lee, Damien Guironnet, and Ying Diao, Tunable structural color of bottlebrush block copolymers through direct-write 3D printing from solution. Science Advances, 6 (24):eaaz7202, 2020. http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/24/eaaz7202.abstract
- Lois Yoksoulian, Researchers mimic nature for fast, colorful 3D printing, in University of Illinois Research News, June 10, 2020. https://news.illinois.edu/view/6367/809468
PS. There has to be a great name for a band somewhere in here:
“bottlebrush block copolymer photonic crystals”,
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