It is a formidable challenge to simultaneously achieve wide-gamut, high-resolution, high-speed while low-cost manufacturability, long-term stability, and viewing-angle independence in structural colors for practical applications. The conventional nanofabrication techniques fail to match the requirement in low-cost, large-scale and flexible manufacturing. Processing by pulsed lasers can achieve high throughput while suffering from a narrow gamut of ~15% sRGB or angle-dependent colors. Here, we demonstrate an all-in-one solution for ultrafast laser-produced structural colors on ultrathin hybrid films that comprise an absorbent dielectric TiAlN layer coating on a metallic TiN layer. Under laser irradiation, the absorption behaviours of the TiAlN-TiN hybrid films are tailored by photothermal-induced oxidation on the topmost TiAlN. The oxidized films exhibit double-resonance absorption, which is due to the non-trivial phase shifts both at the oxide-TiAlN interface, and at the TiAlN-TiN interface. By varying the accumulated laser fluence to modulate the oxidation depth, angle-robust structural colors with unprecedented large-gamut of ~90% sRGB are obtained. The highest printing speed reaches 10 cm²/s and the highest resolution exceeds 10000 dpi. The durability of the laser-printed colors is confirmed by fastness examination, including salt spray, double-85, light bleaching, and adhesion tests. These features render our technique to be competitive for industrial applications.

It is always a great challenge to bridge the nano- and macro-worlds in nanoscience, for instance, manufacturing uniform nanogratings on a whole wafer in seconds instead of hours even days. Here, we demonstrate a single-step while extremely high-throughput femtosecond laser scanning technique to obtain wafer-scale, highly regular nanogratings on semiconductor-on-metal thin films. Our technique takes advantage of long-range surface plasmons-laser interference, which is regulated by a self-initiated seed. By controlling the scanning speed, two types of nanogratings are readily manufactured, which are produced by either oxidation or ablation. We achieve a record manufacturing speed (>1 cm² s⁻¹), with tunable periodicity of Λ < 1 µm. The fractional variation of their periodicity is evaluated to be as low as ∆Λ/Λ ≈ 0.5%. Furthermore, by utilizing the semiconductor-on-metal film-endowed interference effects, an extremely high energy efficiency is achieved via suppressing light reflection during femtosecond laser nano-processing. As the fabricated nanogratings exhibit multi-functionality, we exemplify their practical applications in highly sensitive refractive index sensing, vivid structural colors, and durable superhydrophilicity.

The application of femtosecond laser-induced periodic surface texturing has significant potential in medicine, optics, tribology, and biology, among other areas. However, when irradiated by a large intense laser spot, the periodic structures usually exhibit an uncontrollable regularity, forming bifurcated patterns, thus limiting their widespread application. Irregularity originates from numerous independent branching seeds. The usual solution to this problem is to utilize the quasi-direct laser writing technique, that is, by limiting the laser beam size (diameter of100 wavelengths). Surprisingly, some unconventional complex patterns, such as radial, annular, and spiral gratings, can also be easily produced by structured light fields with unprecedented regularity. Their diameters reach up to >500 μm. Moreover, we can artificially control the initial seeding structure to further improve the regularity of the gratings, defined by dispersion in the ripple orientation angle in their 2D Fourier transform. As a result, the regularity in our experiments produced by a large laser spot is even higher than that scanned by a tiny beam. Controllable and highly regular ripples are beneficial to the structural coloring effects because they arise from the light diffraction by subwavelength gratings. The application of femtosecond laser-induced periodic surface texturing has significant potential in medicine, optics, tribology, and biology, among other areas. However, when irradiated by a large intense laser spot, the periodic structures usually exhibit an uncontrollable regularity, forming bifurcated patterns, thus limiting their widespread application. Irregularity originates from numerous independent branching seeds. The usual solution to this problem is to utilize the quasi-direct laser writing technique, that is, by limiting the laser beam size (diameter of100 wavelengths). Surprisingly, some unconventional complex patterns, such as radial, annular, and spiral gratings, can also be easily produced by structured light fields with unprecedented regularity. Their diameters reach up to >500 μm. Moreover, we can artificially control the initial seeding structure to further improve the regularity of the gratings, defined by dispersion in the ripple orientation angle in their 2D Fourier transform. As a result, the regularity in our experiments produced by a large laser spot is even higher than that scanned by a tiny beam. Controllable and highly regular ripples are beneficial to the structural coloring effects because they arise from the light diffraction by subwavelength gratings.

Using the two-photon polymerization (TPP) lithography, here we propose and experimentally demonstrate a fiber-tipped Fabry-Perot interferometer (FPI) for liquid refractive index (RI) measurement. To fit the aqueous environment, the FPI is designed as an open-cell microstructure consisting of well-crafted surfaces together with supporting rods, where the major spectral interference occurs between the waveguide’s facet and the printed surface. Subsequently, the sensing performances of the fiber FPI are comprehensively studied under various RI as well as temperature configurations. The RI sensitivity is obtained to be ∼1058 nm/RIU with a low detection limit of 4.5× 10⁻⁶ RIU, which is comparable to that of previous reported FPIs. And the temperature cross-sensitivity reaches a value of 8.2 × 10⁻⁵ RIU/°C, indicating the good reliability for RI monitoring. Compared to other fiber FPIs, our sensor exhibits substantial advantages such as ease of fabrication, highly smooth cavity surfaces, and sufficient mechanical strength, providing a practical and competitive solution for chemical and biological sensing.

We design, fabricate, optically and mechanically characterize wearable ultrathin coatings on various substrates, including sapphire, glass and silicon wafer. Extremely hard ceramic materials titanium nitride (TiN), aluminium nitride (AlN), and titanium aluminium nitride (TiAlN) are employed as reflective, isolated and absorptive coating layer, respectively. Two types of coatings have been demonstrated. First, we deposit TiAlN after TiN on various substrates (TiAlN-TiN, total thicknesses <100 nm), achieving vivid and viewing-angle independent surface colors. The colors can be tuned by varying the thickness of TiAlN layer. The wear resistance of the colorful ultrathin optical coatings is verified by scratch tests. The Mohs hardness of commonly used surface coloring made of Si-/Ge-metals on substrates is <2.5, as soft as fingernail. However, the Mohs hardness of our TiAlN-TiN on substrates is evaulated to be 7-9, harder than quartz. Second, Fano-resonant optical coating (FROC), which can transmit and reflect the same color as a beam split filter is also obtained by successively coating TiAlN-TiN-AlN-TiN (four-layer film with a total thickness of 130 nm) on transparent substrates. The FROC coating is as hard as glass. Such wearable and color-tunable thin-film structural colors and filters may be attractive for many practical applications such as sunglasses.