National Institute for Materials Science

Fuji Kagaku Corporation

Seiichi Furumi

Fumio Uchida

Satoshi Kawanaka

Hiroshi Fudoji

Tsutomu Sawada

Provided are: a sheet of colloidal crystals immobilized in resin exhibiting intense structural color, enabled to be observed easily from a squarely facing direction against a surface; and use thereof. The sheet of the present invention, assuming a direction perpendicular to part of a surface of a target area including partially the sheet surface is set as a specified axis, satisfies: (1) The target area includes plural inclined back-reflecting crystal-domains crystal domains having colloid particles immobilized in resin and including crystal lattice planes capable of Bragg-back reflecting at least some of components in a visible wavelength range of incident light having greater than 0 incident angle with the specified axis; and (2) By defining an azimuth angle around the specified axis, the inclined back-reflecting crystal-domains are so oriented that intensity of reflected light caused by Bragg back reflection varies depending on the azimuth angle of the incident light.

Sheet of colloidal crystals immobilized in resin, method of displaying structural color using same, method for detecting unevenness distribution or hardness distribution of subject using same, and structural color sheet

A sheet of colloidal crystals immobilized in resin exhibiting intense structural color and allowing easy observation thereof from squarely facing direction against the surface; and application thereof are provided. The sheet includes crystal domains comprising colloidal crystals immobilized in resin. The Bragg reflection intensity resulting from crystal domains according to back reflection spectrum measurement to the sheet surface satisfies the following conditions (1) and (2). (1) When elevation angle from the sheet surface is in a range of at least 60&#xb0; and less than 90&#xb0; and measurement is performed at a predetermined azimuth angle on the sheet surface, intensity is not 0 and (2) when elevation angle from the sheet surface is in the range of at least 60&#xb0; and less than 90&#xb0; and azimuth dependency on the sheet surface is measured, the intensity exhibits a maximum value at the predetermined azimuth angle.

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Ibaraki, Japan

Seiichi Furumi