Abstract
Many studies have been carried out to thoroughly understand the colorization mechanisms of bird feathers. However, most of the methods used so far are time-consuming (in days) and involve rather complicated steps (5 to 12). Here, we report a rapid way of producing ‘PbS bird feathers’; this method is inspired by a hair-dyeing method used in ancient Egypt 4000 years ago. The complete synthesis route comprises only two steps and can be completed within 2 h, with the original morphologies of bird feathers well preserved. This method has potential to be extended to the fast fabrication of other functional sulfides which are too complicated to fabricate otherwise.
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant numbers 51131004 and 51171110), the National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program, grant number 2012CB619600), the Shanghai Science and Technology Committee (grant number 10JC1407600), and the Cultivation Fund for Excellent Doctoral Thesis of Shanghai Jiao Tong University. X.Z. acknowledges financial support from the Third Shanghai Innovation Experiment Program for Undergraduate Students and the Participation in Research Program (PRP) of Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Y.T., F.Z. and P.O. have contributed equally to this work.
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Liu, X., Tan, Y., Zhang, F. et al. An ancient method-inspired route for fast fabrication of ‘PbS bird feathers’. MRS Communications 3, 61–65 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1557/mrc.2013.2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1557/mrc.2013.2