Structural Colour Gets Special Attention at ODDS 2022

The phenomena of structural colour – when different wavelengths of light are selectively reflected from a substance, with the remaining wavelengths transmitted or absorbed – is gaining increased attention in the security print industry as an environmentally benign method of creating colour without resorting to dyes or other chemicals (see AN August 2021).

Two papers presented in the ‘New Approaches to Document Security’ session of the recent Optical & Digital Document Security™ (ODDS) Conference in Vienna (11-13 April) described research on different approaches to harnessing the effect.

Peiman Hosseini, co-founder and CEO of Bodle Technologies (UK), described a novel switchable optically variable ink (SOVI), which has the capability to switch between two stable, highly contrasting, colour states generated by an optical nano-cavity featuring ultra-thin phase change materials using laser excitation.