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Roll-to-roll fabrication of touch-responsive cellulose photonic laminates.

Published version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Abstract

Hydroxypropyl-cellulose (HPC), a derivative of naturally abundant cellulose, can self-assemble into helical nanostructures that lead to striking colouration from Bragg reflections. The helical periodicity is very sensitive to pressure, rendering HPC a responsive photonic material. Recent advances in elucidating these HPC mechano-chromic properties have so-far delivered few real-world applications, which require both up-scaling fabrication and digital translation of their colour changes. Here we present roll-to-roll manufactured metre-scale HPC laminates using continuous coating and encapsulation. We quantify the pressure response of the encapsulated HPC using optical analyses of the pressure-induced hue change as perceived by the human eye and digital imaging. Finally, we show the ability to capture real-time pressure distributions and temporal evolution of a human foot-print on our HPC laminates. This is the first demonstration of a large area and cost-effective method for fabricating HPC stimuli-responsive photonic films, which can generate pressure maps that can be read out with standard cameras.

Description

Keywords

cholesteric liquid crystals, cellulose, photonic structures, pressure sensors, roll to roll

Journal Title

Nat Commun

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

2041-1723
2041-1723

Volume Title

9

Publisher

Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Sponsorship
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BB/K014617/1)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/N016920/1)
European Research Council (639088)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/L027151/1)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/L016567/1)
Swiss National Science Foundation (165176)
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BB/L016567/1)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/G060649/1)