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Updated: Dec 29, 2025

Patterning via Optical Saturable Transitions - Fabrication and Characterization

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Published on: December 11, 2014

Tunable Structural Color Patterns Based on the Visible-Light-Responsive Dynamic Diselenide Metathesis.

Cheng Liu¹, Zhiyuan Fan¹, Yizheng Tan¹

¹Key Lab of Organic Optoelectronics and Molecular Engineering, Department of Chemistry, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China.

Advanced Materials (Deerfield Beach, Fla.)

|February 7, 2020

Summary

Researchers developed a novel diselenide shape memory material for creating tunable structural color patterns using visible light. This light-responsive material offers erasable and rewritable patterns for advanced applications.

Keywords:

dynamic covalent bonds photopatterns shape memory materials structural colors

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Area of Science:

Materials Science
Optics
Polymer Chemistry

Background:

Structural color materials are responsive to external stimuli, finding use in sensors, encryption, and displays.
Visible light offers precise spatial and temporal control for material patterning with minimal damage.

Purpose of the Study:

To develop a novel diselenide-containing shape memory material for visible light-induced structural color patterning.
To demonstrate the creation of tunable, erasable, and rewritable structural color patterns using visible light.

Main Methods:

Synthesized a new diselenide-containing shape memory material.
Utilized birefringence in stretched materials for structural color, fixing stress to maintain shape.
Employed visible light irradiation to trigger diselenide metathesis, releasing stress and altering color.
Controlled pattern formation and color tuning via light wavelength and irradiation time using a commercial projector.

Main Results:

Successfully created structural color patterns based on birefringence and stress memory.
Demonstrated reversible stress release and color change upon visible light exposure.
Achieved arbitrary erasure and rewriting of structural color patterns by modulating light parameters.
Showcased a transformation of optical signals into mechanical signals and back into optical signals.

Conclusions:

Introduced a new method for visible-light-responsive structural color materials.
Highlighted the material's potential for display devices, anticounterfeiting labels, and data storage applications.
Established a link between light stimulus, mechanical stress, and tunable optical properties.