Intelligent structural color material based on WS2 nanosheets: applications for anti-counterfeiting

Structural color, an important functional component of many organisms, is widespread in the natural world. The value of WS2 is being gradually recognized. Inspired by these phenomena, an intelligent structural color material, with a heterogeneous striped pattern that is based on WS2 nanosheets, is presented here. When irradiated with light, the material is endowed with light-controlled, reversible, bending behavior with self-reporting color indication. Furthermore, the material has a high stability index and a small maximum bending angle. Most interestingly, because of the WS2 nanosheets' strong photoluminescence ability, the structural colors' intensity is increased. This material can be used as light-triggered, dynamic barcode labels for anti-counterfeiting different products. These features of the bioinspired structural color stripe pattern of the material indicate its potential for constructing binary information storage devices, intelligent sensors, and so on.