Photonic Ink Changes Color On Command

An anonymous reader submits "According to Nature's report : "A new ink changes colour at the flick of a switch." It now named Photonic Ink, or P-Ink. "P-Ink's iridescent colours depend upon a process called diffraction." "To make the colour of the ink tunable" the team led by Geoffrey Ozin "packs a polymer gel between its stacked spheres" which can change size "when it is soaked in solvent and shrinks when it dries". In addition, it "conducts electricity", and "altering the voltage tunes the ink's colour smoothly through the spectrum." more detail also can found on Advanced Materials."

Comments

It might be fun...

[Simon Field]

It might be fun to combine this with piezoelectric plastic film and put it in clothing, so it flashes colors as you move.

Couterfeit Detection

[aridhol]

Depending on how difficult/expensive it is to make this stuff, it could be used on money as an anti-counterfeit measure.

Tattoos

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine tattoos,
your body's natual electrical charges and static

animatoos

On the spot drug tests, for example?

[SolemnDragon]

New meaning to mood rings, for starters. But what i'd like to know is can the colour of the ink be fixed, or linked through an input device (otherwise sealed off from the outside) so that you could have a document that doesn't appear until you enter the right key? could hackable newspapers be next?

And if it were possible to re-print on the same page, would this mean that newspapers would re-use/recycle themselves? Just plug it into the daily info port, and watch as it reprints itself? It wouldn't be as fun as what i use (The internet for my daily news) but it would be intriguing, and i might go for it just to have a hard copy. On the other hand, it's hard enoguh to keep records as it is- this means there could be documents which cease to exist as soon as you tell them to, no pesky burning involved... hm. I'll have to think about this. When i see colourchange makeup come out, i'm going to scream...