Fig. 3: Mechanical property of grown photonic composite films.
From: Self-growing photonic composites with programmable colors and mechanical properties
a Elasticity moduli of \({{EG}}_{40}\) and its grown samples obtained from different crosslinker-free nutrients. b Elasticity moduli of \({{EG}}_{40}-{B}_{9.7}\), \({{EG}}_{40}-{{EG}}_{6.9}\) and \({{EG}}_{40}-{M}_{9.1}\) samples obtained from the nutrients with different crosslinker concentrations. The E-moduli in a and b were obtained from five independent measurements. c Digital photos of the fracture of an as-prepared \({{EG}}_{48.1}\) sample during bending. d Chemical mechanism of reversible softening: alcoholysis to dissociate the connecting structure (softening) and removal of the alcohol moieties to reform the connections (stiffening). e Digital photos of a flexible \({{EG}}_{40}-{{EG}}_{10.6}\) sample (final EG fraction: 45.8%). f The strain-stress curves of \({{EG}}_{48.1}\) (as-prepared) and \({{EG}}_{40}-{{EG}}_{10.6}\)(grown). The samples have similar compositions but the grown one shows a larger strain. g Reshaping mechanism (above) and the digital photos of a multiple-time reshaping sample. For reshaping, the sample was first softened by uptake of alcohol and deformed into a designed shape, followed by annealing treatment to remove the alcohol to fix the desired shape.
