Phys.org  September 16, 2021 Despite extensive efforts to create colour-changing materials and devices, it is challenging to achieve pixelated structural coloration with broadband spectral shifts in a compact space. An international team of researchers (USA – University of Pennsylvania, South Korea) describes pneumatically inflating thin membranes of main-chain chiral nematic liquid crystalline elastomers that have such properties. By taking advantage of the large elasticity anisotropy and Poisson’s ratio (>0.5) of these materials, they geometrically programed the size and the layout of the encapsulated air channels to achieve colour shifting from near-infrared to ultraviolet wavelengths with less than 20% equi-biaxial transverse […]