Photonic Plasticines with Uniform Structural Colors, High Processability, and Self‐Healing Properties

Abstract

Despite the vast variety of colloidal superstructures available in soft matter photonics, it remains challenging to balance the trade‐off between their optical microstructures and material processability. By synergizing colloidal photonics and dynamic chemistry, a type of photonic “plasticine” with characteristics of uniform structural colors, high processability, and self‐healing is demonstrated. Specifically, a boronate ester bond‐based macromonomer is first prepared through complexation between the diols of polyvinyl alcohol and the boronic acid group of 3‐(acrylamido) phenylboronic acid in the presence of concentrated silica colloids. Upon photopolymerization, the dynamic photonic plasticine is formed in situ as the result of the crosslinking of the boronate ester bonded networks. The randomly packed colloids inside the plasticine compose the amorphous photonic crystals, giving rise to angle‐independent structural colors that would not compromise during subsequent processing steps; the reversible nature of the boronate ester bonds endows the plasticine with self‐adaptable and self‐healing properties. Further, the plasticine is also compatible with common shaping methods, that is, cutting, molding, and carving, and thus can be facilely processed into 3D structural colored objects, holding great potentials in fields such as bio‐encoding, optical filters, anti‐counterfeiting, etc.

Self-assembly of colloidal particles into amorphous photonic crystals

“…12e). 185 By adjusting the mechanics of the photonic gel and the size of the internal short-range ordered silica particles, the photonic gel can be processed into bright multicolor patterns. 185 co-workers.…”

Main‐Side Chain Hydrogen Bonding‐Based Self‐Healable Polyurethane with Highly Stretchable, Excellent Mechanical Properties for Self‐Healing Acid–Base Resistant Coating

“…( Figure a; Figure S11, Supporting Information) Moreover, G ′ increases faster with increasing frequency than G ″, and this is in consistent with the characteristic features of typical cross‐linked polymer networks and soft glassy materials. [ 44 ] As the temperature is increased, both G ′ and G ″ decreased (Figure S12, Supporting Information), suggesting that the polymer becomes more viscous and fluid at higher temperatures, and thus it can potentially facilitate self‐healing, which is accelerated at higher temperatures. However, G ′ is higher than G ″ in whole temperature ranges, indicating that PUTD‐CIPA behaves mainly as an elastic solid rather than as a fluid‐like material.…”

Bioinspired Supramolecular Photonic Composites: Construction and Emerging Applications

“…Inspired by structurally colored animals, photonic composites with structural colors obtained by embedding colloidal photonic arrays in soft, transparent, and colorless polymer matrices have been recently developed. [61][62][63][64][65][66][67][68][69][70] Importantly, the periodicity or arrangement of photonic arrays in polymeric matrices can transform upon deformation to cause a color change, giving rise to mechanochromism. The introduction of polymers improves the duration of photonic materials, endows them with great potential in the fields of sensing, biological detection, and flexible display devices, and provides more strategies for the development of soft photonics.…”