厉害，蝴蝶的颜色用在汽车中了
Lexus Structural Blue LC 500h
Image of OMNI Blue pigment under 200x magnification
Throughout history, mankind has attempted to simulate striking colors found in nature. When you see the brilliant orange and silvery blue color emitted by a neon tetra fish or the varied and vivid colors of a hummingbird, it’s not due to natural pigmentation in their scales or skin. These creatures contain a unique and colorless nanostructure that reflects or absorbs certain wavelengths of light to create what is called “structural color”.
纵观历史，人类试图模拟自然界中发现的鲜明色彩。当你看到霓虹四鱼发出的鲜艳的橙色和银蓝色或蜂鸟的各种鲜艳色彩时，它不是由于它们的鳞片或皮肤上的天然色素沉着。这些生物含有独特的无色纳米结构，可反射或吸收某些波长的光，从而产生所谓的“结构色”。
The quest to create bioinspired colors that reflect the purity and brilliance of colors found in nature is not just a scientific or artistic pursuit, but also an economic one. Global brands are constantly leveraging breakthroughs in physics and materials science to create cutting-edge designs, special effects and differentiated colors that boost the value of their products. The auto industry in particular leverages unique colors and effects to attract discerning car buyers that are willing to pay a premium for luxury models. Most recently, the release of the Lexus LC Inspiration Series edition in October 2017 turned heads with an extremely unique blue paint color called Structural Blue. The genesis of the lustrous Structural Blue color was inspired many years prior by the shimmering and iridescent wings of the morpho butterfly.
创造生物灵感的颜色，反映自然界中发现的颜色的纯度和光彩，这不仅仅是一种科学或艺术追求，也是一种经济追求。全球品牌不断利用物理和材料科学的突破，创造出前沿的设计，特效和差异化的色彩，从而提升产品的价值。特别是汽车行业利用独特的颜色和效果来吸引那些愿意为豪华车型支付高价的汽车购买者。最近，2017年10月发布的雷克萨斯LC灵感系列版本推出了极为独特的蓝色涂料，名为Structural Blue（结构蓝）。许多年前，结构蓝来源于蝴蝶的闪闪发光和彩虹色的翅膀的启发了。
Structural colors have been challenging to recreate in commercial volumes due to the unique composition of natural materials with alternating patterns that can produce just the right amount of reflection or absorption of a color. These designs typically reflect 95-100 percent of a particular wavelength of light, creating deep, rich colors (Figure 1). Today’s automotive colors typically reflect 50-60 percent of light, and pigment manufacturers have struggled to attain the level of purity seen in nature – until now.
由于具有交替图案的天然材料的独特组成，结构颜色在商业体积中重建具有挑战性，所述交替图案可产生恰当量的反射或吸收颜色。这些设计通常反射95-100％的特定波长的光，从而产生深沉，丰富的色彩（图1）。今天的汽车颜色通常反射50-60％的光，直到现在，颜料制造商一直在努力达到自然界所见的纯度 。
FIGURE 1 » Structural pigments reflect nearly 100 percent of target wavelengths.
图1»结构颜料反射了近100％的目标波长
Debasish Banerjee, a Ph.D. physicist, has been investigating structural color for use in automotive coatings since 2005. He works under the lead of Minjuan Zhang, who holds a Ph.D. in Physical Electronics, and runs these efforts at Lexus Research in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The team had been studying structural color for several years, and Banerjee joined the group to help advance the effort.
物理学博士Debasish Banerjee自2005年以来，一直在研究用于汽车涂料的结构颜色。他在拥有物理电子学博士学位的Minjuan Zhang的带领下工作，并在密歇根州安娜堡的雷克萨斯研究中心开展这些工作。该团队多年来一直在研究结构颜色，Banerjee加入该团队以帮助推进这项工作。
“By basic nature of how light travels through structural colors, they change from one color to another when we look at them from different angles – it’s a really cool feature of structural color,” said Banerjee. “However, Lexus wanted to create an extremely unique and vivid effect that had minimal color shift. This was the biggest challenge we had to overcome.”
“当我们从不同的角度观察它们时，它们通过结构颜色从一种颜色变为另一种颜色，这是结构色的一个非常酷的特征，”Banerjee说。“然而，雷克萨斯希望创造一种极其独特且生动的效果，其色彩偏移极小。这是我们必须克服的最大挑战。”
After 15 years of development and countless hours of collaboration across a number of experts, the global research group was finally able to crack the code on structural color, in partnership with specialty pigment-maker VIAVI Solutions. Together, they developed “omnidirectional” structural color that does not change when viewed from different angles. The car paint’s pure blue color produces a liquid metal effect with high chroma (intensity of color) and a high flip-flop (bright face and a dark off-angle color). Because the Lexus LC has a color unlike anything else available in the auto industry today, it’s already getting rave reviews.
经过15年的发展和与众多专家的无数小时合作，全球研究团队终于能够与特种颜料制造商VIAVI Solutions合作，破解结构色彩的代码。它们共同开发出“全向”结构颜色，从不同角度观察时颜色不会发生变化。汽车漆的纯蓝色产生液体金属效果，具有高色度（颜色强度）和高触发器（亮面和暗偏角颜色）。因为雷克萨斯LC的颜色与当今汽车行业见到的颜色不同，所以它已经得到了好评。
Tapping Physics, Chemistry and Photonics for Structural Color
挖掘物理，化学和光子学的结构颜色
Banerjee looked to nanoscale photonics as part of his approach to create a structural color with little or no angle dependence or color-shift.
Banerjee将纳米级光子学视为他创造结构色的方法的一部分，这种结构色很少或没有角度依赖或色移。
“Initially I drew from advances in photonics research happening in the telecommunications industry. They were working on broadband, angle-independent, or omnidirectional, one-dimensional photonic crystals that don’t change their reflection band at various angles in the infrared wavelength area,” noted Banerjee.
Banerjee指出：“最初，我从电信行业发生的光子学研究的进展中汲取灵感。他们研究的是宽带，角度无关或全向一维光子晶体，它们不会在红外波长区域的各个角度改变其反射带。“
Using an in-house simulation model, he experimented with high- and low-index materials to pinpoint a pair that could reflect the same wavelength of light from all viewing angles when combined into a multilayer structure. Banerjee finally landed on using titanium and hafnium oxides, utilizing the optimum refractive index difference between the two. While the effect was extremely close to nature, it required 31 layers of material to create, making it unsuitable as a pigment in an auto paint application.
使用内部仿真模型，他使用高折射率和低折射率材料进行实验，以确定一对可以在组合成多层结构时反射来自所有视角的相同波长的光。Banerjee最终使用钛和铪氧化物，利用两者之间的最佳折射率差异。虽然效果非常接近自然，但它需要产生31层材料，使其不适合作为汽车涂料应用中的颜料。
In 2009, Minjuan Zhang and her team began collaborating with VIAVI Solutions to develop a nonshifting and omnidirectional structural color. In addition to being a global leader in optical filters for telecommunications and consumer electronics, the company is known for its ChromaFlair® interference pigment used in automotive special-option paint colors, including the Limited Edition 2006 Toyota Scion xB.
2009年，Minjuan Zhang和她的团队开始与VIAVI Solutions合作开发非移动和全向结构色。除了是在电信和消费电子光学滤光片的全球领导者，该公司最著名的是适用于汽车漆的ChromaFlair ®干涉颜料，其中包括2006年限量版丰田Scion xB。
Together, the two companies tackled challenges to simplify the complex design. Based on discussions with VIAVI, Banarjee and Zhang modified the pigment layer architecture to fit VIAVI’s production requirements. An aluminum layer was added to boost reflectivity and provide hiding, eventually reducing pigment layers from 31 to seven. The VIAVI team then produced a prototype of what would become the groundbreaking OMNI Blue pigment used to create Structural Blue paint for a demonstration car. A design review of the car paint convinced executive management at both Lexus and VIAVI to continue supporting the effort.
两家公司共同应对简化复杂设计的挑战。根据与VIAVI的讨论，Banarjee和Zhang修改了颜料层结构，以满足VIAVI的生产要求。添加铝层以提高反射率并提供遮盖，最终将颜料层数从31减少至7。然后，VIAVI团队制作了一个原型，它将成为用于为示范汽车制造结构蓝色涂料的突破性OMNI蓝色颜料。汽车油漆的设计审查使雷克萨斯和VIAVI的执行管理层确信继续支持这项工作。
Creating the pigment was one big milestone, while making a completely new pigment that was compatible with an automotive paint system was another. Zhang spent a year working with Lexus’s paint design group in Japan to achieve the second goal. Dispersion of the structural pigment in waterborne paint was finally realized, in collaboration with Nippon Paint Automotive Coatings and Toyo Aluminum in Japan. The U.S. and Japan teams worked together to finalize Structural Blue automotive paint, which made its debut on a Lexus LC model at the 2016 Geneva Motor Show. It became an instant sensation.
制造颜料是一个重要的里程碑，而制造一种与汽车涂料系统兼容的全新颜料则是另一个里程碑。zhang花了一年时间与雷克萨斯在日本的油漆设计小组合作，以实现第二个目标。最终，与日本的Nippon Paint Automotive Coatings和Toyo Aluminum合作，实现了分散的水性涂料中结构颜料。美国和日本团队共同合作完成了结构蓝汽车油漆，并在2016年日内瓦车展上首次亮相雷克萨斯LC车型。它立刻引起了轰动。
Elegant Craftsmanship During Production
生产过程中的优雅工艺
As each luxury car model is manufactured, VIAVI and Lexus are taking a craftsman-style approach to production. It takes eight months to produce enough pigment for 300 special-edition vehicles, and only two Structural Blue cars can be produced per day. Each of the special LCs contain over 300 billion pigment flakes that work as tiny microscale mirrors to generate the lustrous and exquisite color.
随着每款豪华车型的制造，VIAVI和雷克萨斯都采用工匠风格的生产方式。为300辆特别版车辆生产足够的颜料需要8个月，而且每天只能生产两辆Structural Blue汽车。每个特殊的LC包含超过3000亿个颜料片，可作为微小的微型镜子，产生光泽和精致的颜色。
This “artisanal” approach reflects consumers’ growing appreciation for goods that are made in small batches with great attention to detail. In an era of mass production, it reflects the high quality and unique design that very selective car buyers want to associate with their personal brand. Consumer brands are capitalizing on this trend to differentiate themselves from the competition.
这种“手工艺”方法反映了消费者对小批量生产的商品越来越看重，并且非常注重细节。在大规模生产的时代，它反映了汽车购买者希望与其个人品牌联系的高品质和独特设计的。消费者品牌正在利用这一趋势，使自己从竞争中脱颖而出。
Summary
总结
It took a large number of experts across geographic regions and disciplines over many years to commercialize this new pigment based on the mystery of color in nature. The development of the OMNI Blue pigment opens the door to creating a full palette of brilliant paint colors using the same raw materials and methods.
“Due to advances we’ve made with the OMNI Blue pigment, we now have the potential to create an infinite number of colors that produce the same breathtaking effect,” said Banerjee.
多年来，跨越地理区域和学科的大量专家将这种新颜料商业化，这是基于自然色彩的神秘感。MNI Blue颜料的开发为使用相同的原材料和方法创造出色彩鲜艳的油漆颜色打开了大门。“由于我们使用OMNI Blue颜料取得了进步，我们现在有可能创造出无数种颜色，产生相同的惊人效果，”Banerjee说。
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