Joined: 16 Mar 2004 |Posted: Wed Apr 02, 2008 3:08 pm Post
subject: Polymer opal films shed new kind of light on nature |24
July 2007 Nanowerk Polymer opal films shed new kind of light on
nature Imagine cleaning out your refrigerator and being able to
tell at a glance whether perishable food items have spoiled,
because the packaging has changed its colour, or being able to
tell if your dollar bill is counterfeit simply by stretching it
to see if it changes hue. These are just two of the promising
commercial applications for a new type of flexible plastic film
developed by scientists at the University of Southampton in the
United Kingdom and the Deutsches Kunststoff-Institut (DKI) in
Darmstadt, Germany. Combining the best of natural and manmade
optical effects, their films essentially represent a new way for
objects to precisely change their colour. The researchers will
publish their findings in the July 23 issue of Optics Express
("Nanoparticle-tuned structural color from polymer opals"), an
open-access journ