Review of nanostructure color filters

Abstract

Nanostructure color filters filter light spectrum via the structural engineering, unlike traditional dye filters that rely on the chemical compositions to absorb light. In light of the successful advance in micro/nanofabrication technology in the past decades, these structured color filters are particularly promising for future applications in ultrascaled color filtering and multi-spectral imaging. We will summarize the recent progress in nanostructure color filters based on plasmonics, nanowires, metamaterials, and quantum dots (QDs). Plasmonics filters rely on surface plasmon resonances to realize the spectrum selection. For nanowire color filters, the color filtering is achieved by light coupling into the leaky or waveguiding mode in nanowires. In metamaterial filters, the refractive index of artificial materials is manipulated to create a broad color palette. QDs color filters rely on bandgap engineering to create filtering effects by simply altering the size and composition of the QDs. Clearly, the above filtering technologies have their own pros and cons, which will be analyzed.