Sounds very interesting. Just started looking at the paper, which seems very complex to me "An alternative approach utilizes light absorption via localized surface plasmon resonances (LSPRs) of noble metal nanoparticles (NPs)".
I came across https://www.nano-resonance.com/ which appears to be the promotional page for the technique, it has a nice diagram which appears to show how the size of the silicon nanoparticle enhances certain wavelengths of light.
Very cool how they can use an inkjet printer for their approach.
Also see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lippmann_plate for a photographic process that creates colours using diffraction patterns.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DyrBDsKA5s is a fun video on lippmann plates.
Whoa...I worked on this exact thing around 20 years ago. But in my time, we were using laser pulses to ablate noble metals. Printer would have made life so much easier.
I just watched that video the other day otherwise I'd have no idea what structural color is.
I always loved the holograms that were ever so popular in the 1980s. I just found some guy making lippmann plates on Etsy too:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/4343596905/white-flower-lippman...
Watched that video last night, really approachable and made me re-think everything I thought I knew about photography!
Yeah, it's very cool, I found a rather interesting document on the chemistry to create a lippmann plate 'The True Colour of Photography' by 'Hans I. Bjelkhagen, Darran P.M. Green' seems their exposure times where in the order of minutes.