Programming multicolour micro-patterns via regional polymer-stabilized heliconical soft architecture

Abstract

Structural colours have broad applications in advanced photonics due to the various advantages of fade-resistance, high resolution and saturation. Nevertheless, leveraging the structural colours of adaptive systems with dynamical wide-colour-range tunability and achieving the regional modulation of colourful and vibrant patterns with high saturation are always formidable challenges. Herein, we demonstrate a programming micro-patterns technology of heliconical architecture by regional polymer stabilization based on a polymerizable heliconical system, showing high saturation and full-colour range covering visible light by controlling an applied electric field. The strategy realizes a regionally tunable pattern of a dual structural colour grating, in which the grating pattern contains a stabilized colour and an electrically drivable colour, thus enabling the modulation, concealment, display and erasure of a desirable colourful pattern and its optical vortex diffraction with orbital angular momentum. In addition, a series of high-resolution multiple structural colour patterns of heliconical architecture by programming stepwise exposure are developed, realizing multicolour anti-counterfeiting labels with arbitrary designed patterns, reversible dual information switch and encryption, and matrix encoding of structural colours in a convenient, facile and power-saving way. We envision that this work can expand the understanding of integrated and systematic photonics engineering, and inspire the practicality and development of adaptive photonics.