Selective Coloration of Melanin Nanospheres through Resonant Mie Scattering

Soojeong Cho; Tae Soup Shim; Ju Hyeon Kim; Dong-Hyun Kim; Shin-Hyun Kim

doi:10.1002/adma.201700256

Selective Coloration of Melanin Nanospheres through Resonant Mie Scattering

Adv Mater. 2017 Jun;29(22). doi: 10.1002/adma.201700256. Epub 2017 Apr 3.

Authors

Soojeong Cho^{1

2}, Tae Soup Shim^{3

4}, Ju Hyeon Kim¹, Dong-Hyun Kim^{2

5}, Shin-Hyun Kim¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, KAIST, Daejeon, 34141, South Korea.
² Department of Radiology, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, 60611, USA.
³ Department of Chemical Engineering, Ajou University, Suwon, 16499, South Korea.
⁴ Department of Energy Systems Research, Ajou University, Suwon, 16499, South Korea.
⁵ Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center, Chicago, IL, 60611, USA.

PMID: 28370400
DOI: 10.1002/adma.201700256

Abstract

Black melanin inks are prepared to selectively exhibit colors under strong light, inspired by human hair. High absorbance of melanin suppresses multiple scattering, causing resonant Mie scattering predominant. Various colors can be developed as the resonant wavelength dictated by nanosphere diameter. Therefore, the melanin inks can be used to encrypt and selectively disclose multicolor patterns for anticounterfeiting applications.

Keywords: Mie scattering; melanin; nanospheres.