Abstract
Silicon nanoparticles (SiNPs) with lowest-order Mie resonance produce non-iridescent and non-fading vivid structural colors in the visible range. However, the strong wavelength dependence of the radiation pattern and dielectric function makes it very difficult to design nanoparticle systems with the desired colors. Most existing studies focus on monodisperse nanoparticle systems, which are unsuitable for practical applications. This study combined the Lorentz-Mie theory, Monte Carlo, and deep neural networks to evaluate and design colored SiNP systems. The effects of the host medium and particle size distribution on the optical and color properties of the SiNP systems were investigated. A bidirectional deep neural network achieved accurate prediction and inverse design of structural colors. The results demonstrated that the particle size distribution flattened the Mie resonance peak and influenced the reflectance and brightness of the SiNP system. The SiNPs generated vivid colors in all three of the host media. Meanwhile, our proposed neural network model achieved a near-perfect prediction of colors with high accuracy of the designed geometric parameters. This work accurately and efficiently evaluates and designs the optical and color properties of SiNP systems, thus accelerating the design process and contributing to the practical production design of color inks, decoration, and printing.