Engineering the properties of light with multi‐channel planar elements can produce independent spectral response, and has formed the solid basis for image steganography techniques, which holds great promise for applications including information storage, optical encryption, and anti‐counterfeiting. However, most of the recently reported steganography systems suffer from limited size, sophisticated fabrication, and finite degree of freedom in encoding and decoding process. Herein, a versatile image steganography system based on soft material is proposed. The polarization and intensity of transmitted light are modulated by programing the anchoring boundary of liquid crystals, allowing arbitrary independent images multiplexing in single‐size element with high fidelity. Specifically, the stimuli‐responsiveness of liquid crystals endows the platform with a new degree of freedom to manipulate the transmitted spectrum dynamically, further sketching a prospective framework toward a new type of steganography with fascinating tunability. The proposed strategy sheds new light on multifarious display system by harnessing the stimuli‐responsiveness of soft materials, leading to promising applications in information storing, image steganography, anti‐counterfeiting, and multilevel encryption techniques.
Structural colors are widespread in nature and have become an important component of the lives. Considerable efforts have been made toward reversible color tuning, which underpins intriguing applications, including color displays, anti‐counterfeiting, and information encryption. However, the limited size, complicated fabrication processes, and low modulation speeds of structural colors are the main obstacles to their further development. Herein, a facile method to realize dynamically tunable structural colors is presented, which are enabled by the pixelated programming of soft materials on thickness. Pixelated photoresist microarrays with different heights are obtained using a digitalized lithography technique, enabling delicate control over the thickness of the liquid crystal (LC) layers. Stimuli‐responsive LCs endow structural colors with dynamic and reversible tunability and exhibit remarkable switching speeds with external stimuli. The proposed strategy sheds new light on dynamically tunable structural colors and promotes the development of optical anti‐counterfeiting, thermal sensors, and advanced information encryption.
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