Printing dynamic color palettes and layered textures through modeling-guided stacking of electrochromic polymers

Abstract

A stacking scheme for solution-processable electrochromic polymers is presented with the integration of direct photolithography patterning to realize full colors, layered textures, and controllable color switching.

A tunable color palette of electrochromic materials achieved through an ingenious stacking of ordinary conducting polymers

“…Chen et al recently developed an elegant strategy to overcome this limitation, using a crosslinker molecule to bind the polymeric chains of the successive layers, resulting in solvent-resistant cross-linked polymers. 23 Among the myriad of known ECPs structures, polyaniline (PANI), polythiophene (PT), and poly (3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) are between the simplest, the most studied, the cheaper, and the most applicable ones. 24 The different colors adopted by the thermodynamically stable structures of those polymers (green, red, and blue, respectively) make them suitable candidates to be used as primary colors in the mixing strategy to get full-color palettes of ECPs.…”

Recent advances in electrochromic materials and devices for camouflage applications

“…Similar approaches were also reported by Jianguo Mei and coauthors. 124 As reported in this paper, under ultraviolet light illumination, the EC polymer was cross-linked with the crosslinker to endow them with solvent-resistant properties, resulting in the preparation of multilayers. Moreover, the authors constructed a full-color palette by varying the film thickness of each ECP layer.…”

Pruney Finger-Inspired Switchable Surface with Water-Actuated Dynamic Textures

“…Inspired by nature, a variety of synthetic switchable surfaces have been reported for applications in diverse fields like wettability, − adhesive, , and structural color. − Functional materials like liquid crystalline elastomers, lower critical solution temperature polymers, and photoisomerizing materials which can respond to electrical, thermal, optical, , and mechanical stimuli , have all been reported for accessing reversibly switchable surfaces. Varied patterning strategies including photolithography, , nanoimprinting, chemical deposition, and spontaneous assembly of building blocks are involved. Obviously, both the design of the responsive polymer structures and the surface patterning are complicated and time-consuming.…”