All-Optical Reversible Azo-Based Wrinkling Patterns with High Aspect Ratio and Polarization-Independent Orientation for Light-Responsive Soft Photonics

Azobenzene-containing polymers (azopolymers) can serve as building blocks for an emerging class of soft photonics. Using their photoresponses for the micro/nanofabrication of smart surface is a key but still a challenging step. Here, we report a simple visible-light-illumination strategy to trigger diverse configurations of surface wrinkling on azopolymer-based film/substrate systems, which can be switched between flat and wrinkled states by controlling the intensity of the incident light. Different photoresponsive characteristics of azobenzene are involved in driving the wrinkling/dewrinkling switch. For the first time, we achieve the controlled wrinkling with an unexpected high aspect ratio and surprisingly polarization-independent ordered orientation by exploiting the unique photosoftening effect of azobenzene. Theoretical analysis reveals that an in situ photoinduced reversible soft/hard-contrast boundary determines the wrinkling orientation, which is used to fabricate diverse on-demand hierarchical wrinkles. These photoresponsive systems find broad photonic applications that are not easily accessible to other systems, e.g., optically reversible smart display, information security, and well-regulated optical devices.