Achieving full-color generation with polarization-tunable perfect light absorption

Plasmonic color generation based on gap-plasmon resonators finds an increasing role in subwavelength fade-free color printing, data storage and information encoding due to its high spatial resolution and mechanical/chemical stability. However, most of the current designs are limited to trivial spectral responses, leading to subtractive colors with restricted ranges of their color palettes. Here, we design a plasmonic color metasurface made of an aluminum resonator array, producing strong gap plasmon resonance and nearly perfect light absorption that results in enhanced color saturation. The range of color palette is broadly increased by introducing polarization-dependent supercell of plasmonic resonators, forming “i-patterned” dimers. Such a plasmonic color metasurface holds a great promise for color displays, polarization-multiplexing system, image encryption, and steganography.