Colorants are either inorganic pigments or organic dyestuffs. The inorganic pigments are mainly metals, metal oxides and salts which are known for their durability, stability, and migration fastness but suffer poor brilliance and hard processability. On the other hand, the organic dyestuffs are easy to process and have excellent brilliance and color strength but lack heat and light stabilities, solvent resistance and migration fastness. This work aims to combine the advantages of both categories, the pigments and the dyestuffs, within same material by immobilizing molecularly dispersed dyestuffs in a thermoset crosslinked polymer matrix. The new colorants were prepared via flash evaporation vacuum deposition and radiation curing techniques. The advantages of the vacuum deposition are: a) perfect molecular level dispersion, b) no solubility limitation, c) no solvent or dispersing medium, and d) in-line metalization. The vacuum deposited colored pigments are available in various forms which cover a broad range of applications including transparent colored films, reflective colored films, transparent colored flakes, and reflective colored flakes.
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