Highly Brilliant Noniridescent Structural Colors Enabled by Graphene Nanosheets Containing Graphene Quantum Dots

The most important properties of noniridescent structural colors of amorphous photonic structures (APS) are sufficient color brightness and saturation, which are difficult to be optimized simultaneously. Herein, highly saturated and brilliant noniridescent structural colors are achieved by introducing graphene nanosheets, which contain a fraction of graphene quantum dots (GQDs), into the short‐range ordered APS. The effective modulation of the photoluminescence (PL) of GQDs by the selective enhancement of absorption at the blue pseudo photonic bandgap edges of the APS boosts the PL with wavelength matching that of the photonic bandgap and thus enables high structural color brightness; the uniform light absorption of graphene nanosheets in the whole visible spectra contributes to the high color saturation. Furthermore, by using APS films with short‐range order as templates, a brilliant colorful humidity sensor is demonstrated. Compared with the conventional sensing platform based on photonic crystals, the humidity sensor with brilliant noniridescent structural colors is more convenient by avoiding the confusing color dependence on the viewing angles. The improvement in the structural color brightness of the APS films by facile graphene doping will facilitate their practical applications in fields of decorations, packaging, pigments, sensors, displays, or other color‐related areas. Brilliant noniridescent structural colors are enabled by introducing graphene nanosheets containing graphene quantum dots into the amorphous photonic structures, based on the absorption and photoluminescence of the graphene materials and their interactions with the amorphous photonic structures. Furthermore, by using the brilliant structural color film as the template, a convenient colorful humidity sensor is demonstrated.