Structural color: an emerging nanophotonic strategy for multicolor and functionalized applications

Color as an indispensable element in our life brings vitality to us and enriches our lifestyles through decorations, indicators, and information carriers. Structural color offers an intriguing strategy to achieve novel functions and endows color with additional levels of significance in anti-counterfeiting, display, sensor, and printing. Furthermore, structural colors possess excellent properties, such as resistance to extreme external conditions, high brightness, saturation, and purity. Devices and platforms based on structural color have significantly changed our life and are becoming increasingly important. Here, we reviewed four typical applications of structural color and analyzed their advantages and shortcomings. First, a series of mechanisms and fabrication methods are briefly summarized and compared. Subsequently, recent progress of structural color and its applications were discussed in detail. For each application field, we classified them into several types in terms of their functions and properties. Finally, we analyzed recent emerging technologies and their potential for integration into structural color devices, as well as the corresponding challenges.