Configurable swellability of hydrogel microstructure for structural-color-based imaging concealment/encryption

Optical information concealment/encryption technologies are of great importance to structural color applications. Although a series of responsive materials have been developed for dynamic structural color, the shortcomings of the high-quality synthesis process, the complex controlling method, and the low-resolution capability limit their practical use. Herein, we proposed a novel strategy of humidity-driven structural-color-based imaging concealment/encryption by utilizing metal-hydrogel-metal (MHM) nanocavities with configurable swellablity response to humidity change. With varied exposure doses, multi-stage MHM nanocavities with swellable hydrogel interlayers are achieved, generating dynamic structural color covering the visible spectrum. We revealed that the swelling ratio of hydrogel microstructures can be gradually adjusted between 1.05 and 2.08 by varying the exposure dose. We demonstrated that a hydrogel-based structural color image can be concealed with humidity changes by configurating swellable and non-swellable hydrogel pixels together. Furthermore, we developed the double exposure method in which the first exposure can generate pixel arrays for the deceptive image and the second exposure can locally suppress the swellablity of certain pixels. This method can highlight hidden images in a moist state, demonstrating a powerful strategy for high-density optical information encryption. Multi-stage MHM nanocavities with configurably swellable hydrogel interlayers are achieved through high-resolution electron-beam exposure, resulting in structural-color-based imaging concealment/encryption driven by humidity change.