Dynamic metal-ligand coordination enables hydrogel with rewritable dual-mode pattern display

The realization of dual-mode information display in the same material is of great significance to the expansion of information capacity and the improvement of information security. However, the existing systems lose the ability to re-encode information once they are constructed. Here, dynamic metal-ligand coordination is introduced into a novel hydrogel-based optical platform that allows rewritable dual-mode information display. The hydrogel system consists of a hard lamellar structure of poly(dodecylglyceryl itaconate) (pDGI) and soft double networks of poly(acrylamide)/poly(acrylic acid) (PAAm/PAAc) containing fluorescent carbon dots (CDs). As the carboxylic acid groups can coordinate with metal ions such as Al