成果发表于2021年4月22日《自然·纳米技术》

       提出了一种可调控的动态薄膜结构设计，能够实现在电场调控的可逆结构色。本工作通过电场控制Ag在多层的薄膜结构的迁移，成功驱动了固态薄膜物理结构的浮动变化，进而实现单一器件的颜色大幅度的可逆调控，色彩的显示无需持续的能量维持。作者基于此项设计，进一步探索了纳米级别的彩色显示器和大尺寸彩色打印的应用价值。该项研究同时为功能性光学，电学和光电等半导体相关技术的研究提供了新的窗口。 

Floating solid-state thin films with dynamic structural colour

Zhiyuan Yan, Zheng Zhang, Weikang Wu, Xinglong Ji, Shang Sun, Yu Jiang, Chun Chia Tan, Le Yang, Chong Tow Chong, Cheng-Wei Qiu & Rong Zhao*

DOI：https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-021-00883-7

 

    Thin-film architectures are a staple in a wide range of technologies, such as semiconductor devices, optical coatings, magnetic recording, solar cells and batteries. Despite the industrial success of thin-film technology, mostly due to the easy fabrication and low cost, a fundamental drawback remains: it is challenging to alter the features of the film once fabricated. Here we report a methodology to modify the thickness and sequence of the innermost solid-state thin-film layers. We start with a thin-film stack of amorphous iron oxide and silver. By applying a suitable voltage bias and then reversing it, we can float the silver layer above or below the oxide layer by virtue of the migration of silver atoms. Scanning transmission electron microscopy reveals various sequences and thicknesses of the silver and oxide layers achieved with different experimental conditions. As a proof-of-principle, we show a dynamic change of structural colours of the stack derived from this process. Our results may offer opportunities to dynamically reconfigure thin-film-based functional nanodevices in situ.