Multiscale Surface Programming with Liquid Crystalline Materials: Methods and Electro-Optic Applications

Abstract

The formation of anisotropic surface wrinkles on liquid crystalline polymer films, induced by mechanical instabilities, provides a versatile platform for functional optical materials. Here, we highlight the systematic evolution of a technology that combines plasma treatment with digital polarization optics to achieve precise control over wrinkle morphology and orientation. Our early research demonstrated the application of random wrinkles as a light scattering layer, increasing the light extraction efficiency of quantum dot light-emitting diodes. A significant advancement was then achieved by incorporating a high-resolution spatial light modulator, enabling pixel-level control over wrinkle orientation. This innovation established an opto-physical platform for high-definition information storage and anticounterfeiting. The culmination of this work is the development of physically unclonable functions, where intentionally random wrinkles serve as irreplicable hardware security keys. We further present the concepts of “voxelation” and “multi-factor” authentication, which leverage the polarization angle and wavelength as information axes to extract multidimensional security data from a single 2D surface. We also chronicle the research journey from fundamental principles to advanced hardware security and discuss the future potential for this platform in fields such as soft robotics and adaptive biointerfaces.