Stiff Shape Memory Polymers for High-Resolution Reconfigurable Nanophotonics

Stiff Shape Memory Polymers for High-Resolution Reconfigurable Nanophotonics

Nano Letters

10.1021/acs.nanolett.2c03007

http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.2c03007

Wang Zhang, Hao Wang, Alvin T. L. Tan, Anupama Sargur Ranganath, Biao Zhang, Hongtao Wang, John You En Chan, Qifeng Ruan, Hailong Liu, Son Tung Ha, Dong Wang, Venkat K. Ravikumar, Hong Yee Low, Joel K. W. Yang

10 November 2022

Zhang, W., Wang, H., Tan, A. T. L., Sargur Ranganath, A., Zhang, B., Wang, H., Chan, J. Y. E., Ruan, Q., Liu, H., Ha, S. T., Wang, D., Ravikumar, V. K., Low, H. Y., & Yang, J. K. W. (2022). Stiff Shape Memory Polymers for High-Resolution Reconfigurable Nanophotonics. Nano Letters, 22(22), 8917–8924. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.2c03007

Reconfigurable metamaterials require constituent nanostructures to demonstrate switching of shapes with external stimuli. Yet, a longstanding challenge is in overcoming stiction caused by van der Waals forces in the deformed configuration, which impedes shape recovery. Here, we introduce stiff shape memory polymers. This designer material has a storage modulus of ~5.2 GPa at room temperature and ~90 MPa in the rubbery state at 150 ℃, an order of magnitude higher than previous reports. Nanopillars with diameters of ~400 nm and aspect ratio as high as ~10 were printed by two-photon lithography. Experimentally, we observe shape recovery as collapsed and touching structures overcome stiction to stand back up. We develop a theoretical model to explain the recoverability of these sub-micron structures. Reconfigurable structural color prints with a resolution of 21,150 dots per inch and holograms are demonstrated, indicating potential applications of the stiff shape memory polymers in high-resolution reconfigurable nanophotonics.

Publisher Copyright

This research / project is supported by the National Research Foundation - Competitive Research Programme
Grant Reference no. : NRF-CRP20-2017-0004

This research / project is supported by the National Research Foundation - NRF Investigatorship
Grant Reference no. : NRF-NRFI06-2020-0005

This research / project is supported by the A*STAR - MTC Programmatic
Grant Reference no. : M21J9b0085

This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of a Published Work that appeared in final form in Nano Letters, copyright © American Chemical Society after peer review and technical editing by the publisher. To access the final edited and published work see doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.2c03007

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