Structural Colored Fabrics with Brilliant Colors, Low Angle Dependence, and High Color Fastness Based on the Mie Scattering of Cu2O Spheres

Compared with conventional textile coloring with dyes and pigments, structural colored fabrics have attracted broad attention due to the advantages of eco-friendliness, brilliant colors, and anti-fading properties. The most investigated structural color on fabrics is originated from a band gap of multilayered photonic crystals or amorphous photonic structures. However, limited by the nature of the color generation mechanism and a multilayered structure, it is challenging to achieve structural colored fabrics with brilliant noniridescent colors and high fastness. Here, we propose an alternative strategy for coloring a fabric based on the scattering of Cu₂O single-crystal spheres. The disordered Cu₂O thin layers (<0.6 μm) on the surface of fabrics were prepared by a spraying method, which can generate vivid noniridescent structural color due to the strong Mie scattering of Cu₂O single-crystal spheres. Importantly, the great mechanical stability of the structural color was realized by firmly binding Cu₂O spheres to the fabric using a commercial binder. The structural color can be tuned by changing the diameter of Cu₂O spheres. Furthermore, complex patterns can be easily obtained by spray coating Cu₂O spheres with different particle sizes using a mask. According to color fastness test standards, the dry rubbing, wet rubbing, and light fastness of the structural color on fabric can reach level 5, level 4, and level 6, respectively, which is sufficient to resist rubbing, photobleaching, washing, rinsing, kneading, stretching, and other external mechanical forces. This coloring method may carve a practical avenue in textile coloring and has potentials in other practical applications of structural color.