Schrödinger’s red pixel by quasi-bound-states-in-the-continuum

While structural colors are ubiquitous in nature, saturated reds are mysteriously absent. This long-standing problem of achieving Schrödinger’s red demands sharp transitions from “stopband” to a high-reflectance “passband” with total suppression of higher-order resonances at blue/green wavelengths. Current approaches based on nanoantennas are insufficient to satisfy all conditions simultaneously. Here, we designed Si nanoantennas to support two partially overlapping quasi–bound-states-in-the-continuum modes with a gradient descent algorithm to achieve sharp spectral edges at red wavelengths. Meanwhile, high-order modes at blue/green wavelengths are suppressed via engineering the substrate-induced diffraction channels and the absorption of amorphous Si. This design produces possibly the most saturated and brightest reds with ~80% reflectance, exceeding the red vertex in sRGB and even the cadmium red pigment. Its nature of being sensitive to polarization and illumination angle could be potentially used for information encryption, and this proposed paradigm could be generalized to other Schrödinger’s color pixels.