New Artificial ‘Chameleon Skin’ Changes Color when Exposed to Light, Heat
Researchers at the University of Cambridge have developed a new material that acts like the skin of chameleons, changing color when exposed to light, which opens the door to some innovative applications in technologies like adaptive camouflage and large-scale dynamic displays.
The material uses tiny gold particles coated in polymer and suspended in droplets of water in oil. Reported this week in a paper published in the journal Advanced Optical Materials, the researchers said that when the new material is exposed to heat or light, these droplets of water bunch together, changing the color of the material based on the intensity of the light or in response to the degree of temperature change.