Bioinspired structural color particles with multi-layer graphene oxide encapsulated nanoparticle components.

Because of the unique features of spherical symmetry, angle-independency, good monodispersity, controllable components and morphologies, structural color particles (SCPs) have found great significances in various fields such as sensing, monitoring, biological assays, etc. Here, inspired by the melanosome-derived bright structural colors and the self-adhesivity of mussels, we present a kind of bioinspired SCPs assembled from polydopamine (PDA)-adhered multi-layer graphene oxide (GO) encapsulated silica nanoparticles (SNs). It is demonstrated that compared with traditional SCPs, the designed particles possess brighter and more vibrant structural colors, and no complicated modification is required during the functionalization process due to the abundant inherent functional groups of GO. The resultant SCPs are verified to be capable for direct hybridization chain reaction and multiplexed nucleic acid assays. These properties indicate the promising prospects of our designed SCPs.