Self-Assembled Block Copolymer Structural Color for Human-Interactive Sensing Displays

Electrical sensors detect diverse human and environmental changes using variations in electric signals, and these data are often delivered to a display physically connected with the sensor via a microprocessor, facilitating human/machine interface technologies. In this regard, the development of an innovative one-integrated platform with optimized architectures where a sensor and a display are converged is essential to achieve highly efficient and fast information management with low power. Such integrated human-interactive sensing displays (HISDs) can electrically detect external stimuli with simultaneous optical visualization. Among numerous principles for the visualization potentially suitable for HISDs, self-assembled photonic crystals (PCs) of block copolymers (BCPs) are promising with their structural colors (SCs) in visible range resulting from constructive interference between the incident light and the PCs. The presentation provides the recent development of stimuli-adaptive SC displays with the self-assembled BCP PCs. SC displays of the PCs responsive to various external stimuli are described, operating in liquid cells as well as solid-type films. Particularly, emphasis will be made on the recent development of gel-assisted semi-solid type BCP PCs where various stimuli-responsive gels are incorporated into the self-assembled nanostructures, giving rise to emerging HISDs based on the PCs wherein external stimuli are electrically detected with simultaneous visualization of stimuli-adaptive SCs.