Butterfly‐Inspired Tri‐State Photonic Crystal Composite Film for Multilevel Information Encryption and Anti‐Counterfeiting

Counterfeiting is a worldwide issue and has long troubled legitimate businesses, while nowadays anti-counterfeiting materials and technology are still insufficient to combat the escalating counterfeit behaviors. Inspired by hindwing structure of Troides magellanus, a new kind of anti-counterfeiting material taking advantage of both physical and chemical structures to display multiple optical states is prepared. The chemical units (luminescent lanthanide) are blended with physical units (monodispersed colloidal particles) and mediating molecules, which are then assembled into a photonic crystal structure at room temperature in less than 10 s through a new assembly technique called molecule-mediated…

• NN
  National Natural Science Foundation of China

  Awards: 51633001, 51873040, 52131308, 2020B010190003, 51721002