Materializing Light: Real-time, Handheld Fabrication of Programmable Structural Color

Abstract

Structural color is nature’s programmable color palette. While pigments and dyes absorb light to produce color, structural color uses nanoscale, light-reflecting structures to appear iridescently colored. We present MorphoChrome, an optical device for real-time, handheld, programmable structural color fabrication. Analogous to painting with light, MorphoChrome creates multicolor, structurally colored designs by exposing a commercially available holographic photopolymer film to user-controlled wavelengths. Within the device, red, green, and blue laser diodes go through an optical prism, combining light and producing mixed color outputs on the film. Additionally, we introduce a resin-based process to adhere and integrate the structurally-colored film with flexible and rigid objects and diverse making processes. In this thesis, we focus on the device optical design and fabrication, color-mixing, color output UI controller, device aperture tips, and holographic photo-polymer film adherence process. We evaluate the available color space and color resolution, and demonstrate creative fabrication applications.