Reconfigurable Inverse Opal Structure Film for a Rewritable and Double-Sided Photonic Crystal Paper

A rewritable photonic crystal (PC) paper as an environmentally friendly and low-resource-consuming material for information storage and spreading has gradually become a research hotspot. In this work, a novel rewritable PC paper with inkless writing and double-sided rewritability properties was developed. A double-sided epoxy resin PC paper exhibiting an inverse opal structure and a bright structural color was fabricated using the sacrificial template method. Carbon black was doped into the material to increase color saturation and purity while preventing light transmission and protecting the double-sided structural color from interference. The force of sliding friction and deformation triggered by capillary pressure as well as swelling-triggered recovery of the inverse opal structure led to an easy rewriting of the PC paper. The PC paper exhibited excellent rewritability even after 50 runs of the rewriting process. Given the inkless and double-sided rewriting, this study provides a new method for the preparation of rewritable PC papers.