Responsive Zwitterionic Polymers with Humidity and Voltage Dual-Switching for Multilevel Date Encryption and Anticounterfeiting

Data encryption, protection, and anticounterfeiting are crucial in the modern information society. Though a number of technologies have been developed, data security is still facing severe challenges. Herein, a fundamental new approach capable of multilevel data encryption, protection, and anticounterfeiting is developed based on the responsive zwitterionic polymers named as poly(pentafluorophenyl acrylate)-co-poly[(3-((3-acrylamidopropyl)dimethylammonio)propane-1-sulfonate)] (pPFPA-co-pADPS). Detailed studies reveal that zwitterionic polymers exhibit drastic electrical property changes to humidity variation. By reliance of this feature, highly secure touchless palm-based biometric authentication is realized; further, field-effect transistors (FETs) using zwitterionic polymers as dielectrics show nonvolatile memory behaviors with good reliability and rewrite-ability. Remarkably, not only appropriate voltages but also specific humidity range are required to safely decrypt the stored message. In addition, the memory gains the ability to destroy the stored data under counterfeiting/hacking condition, thus preventing the data from being stolen by repeated trials. Therefore, a high level of data security is realized. This work provides new insights into zwitterionic copolymer dielectric based OFETs, demonstrates the first example of double-stage data encryption and protection by OFET memory, and opens up new opportunities for data-securing by responsive materials.