Freeze-derived heterogeneous structural color films

Abstract Structural colors have a demonstrated value in constructing various functional materials. Efforts in this area are devoted to developing stratagem for generating heterogeneous structurally colored materials with new architectures and functions. Here, inspired by icing process in nature and ice-templating technologies, we present freeze-derived heterogeneous structural color hydrogels with multiscale structural and functional features. We find that the space-occupying effect of ice crystals is helpful for tuning the distance of non-close-packed colloidal crystal nanoparticles, resulting in corresponding reflection wavelength shifts in the icing area. Thus, by effectively controlling the growth of ice crystals and photo-polymerizing them, structural color hydrogels with the desired structures and morphologies can be customized. Other than traditional monochromatic structure color hydrogels, the resultant hydrogels can be imparted with heterogeneous structured multi-compartment body and multi-color with designed patterns through varying the freezing area design. Based on these features, we have also explored the potential value of these heterotypic structural color hydrogels for information encryptions and decryptions by creating spatiotemporally controlled icing areas. We believe that these inverse ice-template structural color hydrogels will offer new routes for the construction and modulation of next generation smart materials with desired complex architectures.