Study on the bio-inspired electrochromic device enabled via dielectric elastomer actuator

As a promising research field, electrochromic devices have attracted researcher's attention because of their dynamic display capabilities, high brightness, and convenience of electric signals. Among all the electrochromic modes, the use of electroactive actuators to produce color change is one of the important means. In view of the characteristics of dielectric elastomer (DE) materials such as rapid response and large deformation under electric signal, dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) were prepared and explored for their applications in biomedicine, aerospace, intelligent robotics and other fields. In this paper, inspired by the skin of chameleons, a kind of electrochromic device enabled via dielectric elastomer actuator (EDDEA) is prepared by integrating the stretchable photonic crystals (SPCs) with DEAs. The SPCs can achieve color changes in visible light range and maintain stable performance during multiple working cycles. The prepared EDDEA can produce strain under an electric field, which in turn causes color changes. In addition, the EDDEA can be used to display and measure the strain range of the DEA during actuating process under the excitation of electric field. The results demonstrate that the prepared EDDEA is a fully flexible, highly integrated electrochromic device, which can produce a wide range of color change under electric field. Meanwhile, this device provides potential application value in the strain range control of DEAs.