Chemistry Behind the Mystery of Colors of Different Objects–Part 1

Colors observed are due to various reasons: absorption, emission, reflection, refraction, black body radiation (incandescence), scattering, and nanotechnology (tunable fluorescence emission by the semiconductor quantum dots, iridescent color due to Bragg’s diffraction by the photonic crystals, surface plasmon resonance of the plasmonic nanoparticles). These various reasons for the observed color are not illustrated and discussed in a single source, and the nanotechnology-based color is unknown to most of the students at the undergraduate level. The tutorial review in two parts (Part 1 and Part 2) summarizes and explains all these with suitable examples. Part 1 illustrates the observed color due to absorption, emission, and refraction.