Stimuli-Adaptive and Human-Interactive Sensing Displays Enabled by Block Copolymer Structural Color

Abstract

Displays are an effective way for humans to recognize information instantly and intuitively without linguistic barriers. Electrical sensors detect diverse human and environmental changes through variations in electrical signals; these data are delivered to a display connected to a sensor via a microprocessor, facilitating human/machine interface technologies. The development of an innovative one-integrated platform with optimized architectures, where a sensor and a display are converged, is essential for achieving efficient and rapid information management with low power consumption. These integrated stimuli-adaptive and human-interactive sensing displays (HISDs) electrically detect external stimuli and display an optical visualization simultaneously. Among numerous materials suitable for stimuli-adaptive displays and HISDs, self-assembled photonic crystals (PCs) of block copolymers (BCPs) are promising because of their structural colors (SCs) resulting from constructive interference of incident light. This review provides a comprehensive overview of recent developments in stimuli-adaptive SC displays using self-assembled BCP PCs. The responses of BCP SC displays, operating in liquid cells and solid-type films, to various external stimuli are described. Furthermore, emerging HISDs based on BCP PCs are discussed wherein external stimuli are electrically detected and simultaneous visualization of stimuli-adaptive SCs occurs. A perspective on the development of next-generation stimuli-adaptive BCP SC displays and HISDs is also provided.

Graphical Abstract

Keywords:

• Block copolymer
• self-assembled photonic crystal
• structural color
• stimuli-adaptive structural color displays
• human-interactive sensing displays

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest is reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the National Research Foundation (NRF) of Korea as a Creative Materials Discovery Program funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT [Grant No. NRF-2018M3D1A105892622]. This research was supported by the Pioneer Research Center Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT & Future Planning [grant no.NRF-2022M3C1A3081211]. This study was also supported by a grant from the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Korean government (MEST) [No. 2020R1A2B5B03002697]. This work was also supported by the Open Resource Research Program of the Korea Institute of Science and Technology [2E31551]. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 101064482. This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) Grant by the Korean Government (Ministry of Science and ICT) [NRF-2021M3D1A2049846].