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Self-assembled melanin particles for color production

a self-assembled, color-producing technology, applied in the preparation of microcapsules, organic dyes, material nanotechnology, etc., can solve the problems of significant challenges, non-iridescent structural colors lack sufficient color saturation, useful for wide angle displays, etc., to increase the brightness and saturation of supraballs

Inactive Publication Date: 2019-09-12
THE UNIVERSITY OF AKRON
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  • Summary
  • Abstract
  • Description
  • Claims
  • Application Information

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The present invention is about a process to make bright and non-iridescent nanoparticle structures using melanin and silica. These nanoparticles can be assembled into supramolecules that have a high refractive index and absorb light in a specific way. The process involves using a reverse emulsion process, which can be done using a digital vortex. The scalable process can create a full spectrum of structural colors using just melanin and silica. The technical effect of this invention is the ability to make highly efficient and bright nanoparticle structures.

Problems solved by technology

Many recent studies have demonstrated the use of self-assembly to produce photonic crystals that generate colors across the visible spectrum, but there are still significant challenges.
Many traditional structural colors are iridescent and thus are not useful for wide angle displays and recent examples of non-iridescent structural colors lack sufficient color saturation in the absence of absorbing materials (carbon black, gold nanoparticles, or black polypyrrole) to reduce incoherent scattering.
Although both bottom-up self-assembly and top-down nanolithography methods have been widely used, significant challenges remain to achieve the contrast needed for a complete gamut of colors and a scalable process for industrial application.

Method used

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  • Self-assembled melanin particles for color production
  • Self-assembled melanin particles for color production
  • Self-assembled melanin particles for color production

Examples

Experimental program
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Effect test

example 1

Optical Modeling

FDTD Simulation

[0094]A Lumerical FDTD solutions 8.15 was used to run the optical modeling. In the simulation, we created an FCC colloidal lattice with its plane (111) as X-Y plane and a plane wave light was injected down from Z direction, perpendicular to plane (111). For the simulation in FIG. 8A, we compared theoretical reflectance spectra from core-shell and homogenous nanoparticles. The homogenous nanoparticles is the same size as core-shell nanoparticles with a RI of averaged RI value of core-shell nanoparticles based on the equation,

nhomo2(Vcore+Vshell)=ncore2Vcore+nshell2Vshell  (1)

[0095]We set the RI value of 1.74 for high RI material (identical to synthetic melanin, but without any absorption) and 1.45 for the low RI material (same with fused silica) in our calculations. The lattice has 30 periods along the X and Y directions and 12 periods along Z directions. We chose auto non-uniform mesh type with accuracy of 6 and a light source range of 400-800 nm (mesh...

example 2

Characterization of Nanostructures in Bird Feathers

[0104]Iridescent wild turkey (M. gallopavo) breast feathers and green-winged teal (A. crecca) wing feathers were obtained from the University of Akron collection. The protocol used to prepare barbule cross sections for TEM is set forth in M. Xiao, A. Dhinojwala, M. Shawkey, “Nanostructural basis of rainbow-like iridescence in common bronzewing Phaps chalcoptera feathers.”Opt. Express 22, 14625-14636 (2014), the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. Briefly, cut feathers were dehydrated using 100% ethanol and infiltrated with 15, 50, 70, and 100% Embed 812 resin (Electron Microscopy Sciences) every 24 hours. Next, the EMbed 812 resin and samples were placed into block molds and cured at 60° C. overnight. The blocks were trimmed and then cut 80-nm-thick sections on a microtome (Leica UC6, Leica Microsystems GmbH). The sections were placed onto copper grids for TEM imaging (JEM-1230, JEOL Ltd.). (See ...

example 3

Synthesis of CS-SMNPs

[0105]Pure SMNPs were first synthesized by oxidative polymerization of dopamine molecules (Sigma-Aldrich) under base environment following the procedure described in M. Xiao, Y. Li, M. C. Allen, D. D. Deheyn, X. Yue, J. Zhao, N. C. Gianneschi, M. D. Shawkey, A. Dhinojwala, “Bio-inspired structural colors produced via self-assembly of synthetic melanin nanoparticles.”ACS Nano 9, 5454-5460 (2015), the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

[0106]A silica shell (SiO2) was then deposited on the surface of SMNPs via the modified Stöber method as shown in W. Stöber, A. Fink, E. Bohn, “Controlled growth of monodisperse silica spheres in the micron size range.”J. Colloid Interface Sci. 26, 62-69 (1968), the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. SMNPs (3.25 mg) were first dispersed in a mixture of 5-ml 2-propanol and 0.88-ml deionized water using an ultrasonic method followed by magnetic stirring. Then, ...

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Abstract

In various embodiments, the present invention is directed to a facile one-pot reverse emulsion process to assemble core-shell nanoparticles (CS-SMNPs) into bright and noniridescent photonic supraballs. In one or more embodiments, the present invention is directed to core-shell nanoparticles having an inner high refractive index (RI) core and an outer low RI shell. In one or more embodiment, the present invention includes core-shell nanoparticles using high RI (˜1.74) melanin cores and low-RI (˜1.45) silica shells. In various embodiments, these nanoparticles may be self-assembled into bright and noniridescent supraballs using a scalable one-pot reverse emulsion process. According to various embodiments of the present invention, it is possible to generate a full spectrum of structural colors with the combination of only two ingredients, synthetic melanin and silica.

Description

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]This application claims the benefit of U.S. provisional patent application Ser. No. 62 / 425,285 entitled “Self-Assembled Melanin Particles for Color Production,” filed Nov. 22, 2016, and incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENT SUPPORT[0002]This invention was made with government support under contract numbers EAR-1251895 and DMR-1105370 awarded by the National Science Foundation and contract number FA9550-16-1-0222 awarded by the United States Air Force Office of Scientific Research. The government has certain rights in the invention.FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0003]One or more embodiments of the present invention relate to structural color systems. In certain embodiments, present invention relates to structural color systems using supraballs formed from self-assembled core-shell melanin nanoparticles.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0004]In the colorful world in which we live,...

Claims

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Application Information

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Patent Type & Authority Applications(United States)
IPC IPC(8): B01J13/18C09B69/10C09B67/08
CPCC09B69/104C09B67/0005B82Y20/00B82Y30/00C09B67/0007B01J13/18B82Y40/00
Inventor DHINOJWALA, ALIXIAO, MINGHU, ZIYINGSHAWKEY, MATTHEWGIANNESCHI, NATHAN
Owner THE UNIVERSITY OF AKRON
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