Hand Painting of Noniridescent Structural Multicolor through the Self-Assembly of YOHCO Colloids and Its Application for Anti-Counterfeiting.

YOHCO colloidal particles with tunable size, composition, and optical properties were prepared, and they were used for the fabrication of amorphous photonic crystals? (APCs) patterns through direct hand painting. YOHCO colloids were synthesized by a seeding growth method, in which the colloid size could be controlled by altering the seed amounts and the composition and optical properties can be altered via the doping of Eu. APCs? films with bright, permanent, and tunable structural colors were prepared by the self-assembly of YOHCO colloids of different sizes. Multicolor patterns can be obtained quickly and efficiently by hand painting with the dispersion of YOHCO colloids as ink. An APCs? pattern assembled from YOHCO:Eu colloids is also fabricated, and the pattern shows blue structural color under natural light and bright red colors under illumination of UV light. The facile synthesis procedure, simple assembly process, and unique optical properties of the APCs make it valuable for practical applications such as structural color-based printing and anticounterfeiting.