News & Release
{category_name}
Concept
Resonance Color makes the world more Sustainable.
Color not only gives us convenience, but also enriches our lives through art, clothing, and everyday items. However, some artificial colorants use harmful chemicals. In addition, since many colorants are used, their weight reduces the fuel efficiency of mobility, and the painting process emits a lot of CO₂.
“Resonance Color” with silicon nanoparticles (SiNPs) is a completely new color technology that uses an optical phenomenon called Mie resonance. It overturns this conventional wisdom of the color industry.Through our technology, we will contribute to an environmentally friendly and prosperous future society.
What’s Mie resonance?
Resonance Condition
Mie resonance is a technology that confines light to particles. By confining light of each color wavelength to 100 nm silicon nanoparticles, it is possible to achieve structural coloration with a single sphere, whereas conventional structural coloration was thought to require a multidimensional structure such as a membrane or colloidal crystal.
Moreover, by controlling the size of the silicon nanoparticles, full-color blue, green, and red can be produced with a single material, silicon.
SiNPs 
3D metal toy model coated with SiNPs 
SiNPs ink (0.1wt% of SiNPs)
Application
Used for mobilities, cosmetics, printing and other applications
Mobility
- Ultra-thin & light
- High weather-resistance
- Less energy consumption for drying
- Non-fading
Cosmetics
- High coloring with less amount and thickness
- High opacity
Inkjet print
- Simple printing of highly weather-resistant inks on general-purpose inkjet printers
Decorative film
- Ultra-thin & light
- High weather-resistance
- Strong coloring
Decorative coating
- Weather resistance
- Non-fading
- Sustainable
DRAG
bgMember
-
Takahiro Kameda
Business
- Kobe Univ.
- Sumitomo Corporation
- Microwave Chemical
- ANRI
-
Hiroshi Sugimoto
Science
- Ph.D from Kobe Univ.
- Visiting Researcher at Boston Univ.
- Associate Professor of Kobe Univ.
-
Tomoyuki Oike
Engineering
- Kyushu Univ.
- Mitsubishi Heavy Industries
- Mitsubishi Electrics
For more information
Ultra Light & Thin
High scattering efficiency and opacity enable ultra thin films.
The coating weight is only 0.2-0.4 g/m2, the lightest in the world.
Case: Application to
automobile body
SiNPs can give benefits to not only automobile body
but cosmetics such as foundation.
Weather Resistance
High functionality unique to silicon
-
01
High Temperature
Resistance
No change at temperatures
below 500℃. -
02
Ultraviolet Cut
Cutting ultraviolet rays over an area 3 times the cross-sectional area of SiNPs.
-
03
Chemical Resistance
Chemically stable and resistant
to acids and alkalis.
Non Fading
Structural colors, incl. resonance colors,
do not fade in principle unlike organic pigments.
-
Pigment Color
Fading due to ultraviolet rays (UV) and high temperature
-
Structural Color
Non-fading during 100 million years
Sustainable
Silicon is abundant in resources,
the second most abundant element (26%) in the earth’s crust.
| Element | O | Si | Al | Fe | Ca | Na |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clark number (wt%) |
49.5 | 25.8 | 7.5 | 4.7 | 3.4 | 2.6 |
One raw material can be used to produce full color,
facilitating recycling through mono-materialization.
Safe & Secure
Affinity for the human body
Silicon is an element that is ingested from food and contained in the human body.
| Element | in a 70 -kg person |
|---|---|
| oxygen | 43 kg |
| carbon | 16 kg |
| hydrogen | 7 kg |
| nitrogen | 1.8 kg |
| calcium | 1.0 kg |
| phosphorus | 780 g |
| potassium | 140 g |
| sulfur | 140 g |
| sodium | 100 g |
| chlorine | 95 g |
| magnesium | 19 g |
| iron | 4.2 g |
| fluorine | 2.6 g |
| zinc | 2.3 g |
| silicon | 1.0 g |
Affinity for industry
Silicon is widely used in semiconductors, electronic devices, solar panels, etc.
These can be reused as raw materials.
