Bioinspired Actuators with Morphological–Chromatic Coupling for Information Encryption and Adaptive Camouflage

Abstract Information encryption and anti‐counterfeiting have attracted much interest, in which the most crucial part is the stimulus‐responsive materials. However, most reports on the materials focus on visual‐type encryption dominated by optical properties, including color, transparency, fluorescence, or phosphorescence. Inspired by numerous creatures in nature which utilize morphology and color change to communicate, here, a visual‐morphological integrated encryption actuator is reported based on noncontact light stimulation. A facile bilayer structure is proposed, consisting of a bottom layer of multi‐walled carbon nanotube‐doped liquid crystal elastomer (MWCNT‐LCE) and a top layer of cholesteric LCE (CLCE). Upon near‐infrared (NIR) irradiation (<10 s), reversible shape changes can be achieved due to phase transitions of the MWCNT‐LCE layer. Full‐spectrum color shift (Δλ = 240 nm) is exhibited due to contraction of the CLCE helix to adjust the pitch. Programmable deformation combined with reversible color modulation endows encode and encrypt more than 43 million pieces of information. Furthermore, adaptive camouflage based on morphological and color changes is also shown, improving the survivability of soft robots in complex environments, such as concealment and task execution efficiency. This work provides a novel paradigm for designing next‐generation integrated information encryption, anti‐counterfeiting systems, intelligent sensing, and adaptive camouflage technologies.