4 ms·

Somewhat-related... I just found out about "structural" coloration[1], which is "production of color by microscopically structured surfaces fine enough to inter

Somewhat-related... I just found out about "structural" coloration[1], which is "production of color by microscopically structured surfaces fine enough to interfere with visible light". It took Lexus ~15 years to develop "structural blue", a colorless paint that creates blue light using this structural interference. The making-of video[2] is pretty amazing, and definitely worth watching. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_coloration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_coloration [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JU541_zm2w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JU541_zm2w

MrFoof 8y ago
Came here looking to see if someone had already posted about this. Not surprised someone else was aware of it. This is absolutely worth a read, and the less than 5 minutes to watch the video. ----- I'm not sure what the "Structural Blue Edition" cost (my guess is the range of $10K - $30K premium), but it's still far from the most expensive car paint jobs -- Porsche's "Liquid Metal Silver" for the 918 Spyder (created by BASF) was a $64,000 option (where the aluminum flakes arrange themselves in a specific way during application), yet there's been crazier stuff offered than that.
tgb 8y ago
After learning about light interference creating the iridescence of butterflies and of CDs, I wondered whether you could burn a CD to control the structure of the CD to change that interference enough to, say, draw an iridescent image. However, it looks like the writeable elements of a CD are a too large. With a Bluray though, it might be possible... I haven't tried and I'm not entirely sure how you'd go about doing it.
- buckminster 8y ago
  LightScribe kind of does this though it's not iridescent. You can also find some free code to achieve a similar effect on the data side of a disk. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LightScribe https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LightScribe
  - striking 8y ago
    For anyone who was curious: I found this instructable that includes MATLAB code to generate the data for the image to be burned to the data side of a CD. http://www.instructables.com/id/Burning-visible-images-onto-CD-Rs-with-data-beta/ http://www.instructables.com/id/Burning-visible-images-onto-... This was all I could really find, unfortunately...
kristianp 8y ago
Makes you wonder if a structural red could be created. I would guess not, otherwise it would exist in nature. Here's the first search result of structural red: https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/mystery-of-why-structural-red-colours-are-not-found-in-nature-is-solved/8117.article https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/mystery-of-why-structura...
- lightedman 8y ago
  "Makes you wonder if a structural red could be created. I would guess not, otherwise it would exist in nature" Moonstone sometimes exhibits red-orange coloration due to its structure of alternating layers of different types of feldspar. Opals do the same thing but by water-filled fractures inside a group of quartz spheres. We can synthesize both so making a structural red should not be difficult.
dingo_bat 8y ago
Quite amazing that such bright color "appears" from colorless ingredients!

MrFoof 8y ago

Came here looking to see if someone had already posted about this. Not surprised someone else was aware of it. This is absolutely worth a read, and the less than 5 minutes to watch the video. ----- I'm not sure what the "Structural Blue Edition" cost (my guess is the range of $10K - $30K premium), but it's still far from the most expensive car paint jobs -- Porsche's "Liquid Metal Silver" for the 918 Spyder (created by BASF) was a $64,000 option (where the aluminum flakes arrange themselves in a specific way during application), yet there's been crazier stuff offered than that.

tgb 8y ago

After learning about light interference creating the iridescence of butterflies and of CDs, I wondered whether you could burn a CD to control the structure of the CD to change that interference enough to, say, draw an iridescent image. However, it looks like the writeable elements of a CD are a too large. With a Bluray though, it might be possible... I haven't tried and I'm not entirely sure how you'd go about doing it.

buckminster 8y ago
LightScribe kind of does this though it's not iridescent. You can also find some free code to achieve a similar effect on the data side of a disk. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LightScribe https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LightScribe
- striking 8y ago
  For anyone who was curious: I found this instructable that includes MATLAB code to generate the data for the image to be burned to the data side of a CD. http://www.instructables.com/id/Burning-visible-images-onto-CD-Rs-with-data-beta/ http://www.instructables.com/id/Burning-visible-images-onto-... This was all I could really find, unfortunately...

kristianp 8y ago

Makes you wonder if a structural red could be created. I would guess not, otherwise it would exist in nature. Here's the first search result of structural red: https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/mystery-of-why-structural-red-colours-are-not-found-in-nature-is-solved/8117.article https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/mystery-of-why-structura...

lightedman 8y ago
"Makes you wonder if a structural red could be created. I would guess not, otherwise it would exist in nature" Moonstone sometimes exhibits red-orange coloration due to its structure of alternating layers of different types of feldspar. Opals do the same thing but by water-filled fractures inside a group of quartz spheres. We can synthesize both so making a structural red should not be difficult.

dingo_bat 8y ago

Quite amazing that such bright color "appears" from colorless ingredients!