Flexible Photonic Films Based on Cellulose Nanocrystals with Temperature-responsive Structural Color

Wen-Huan Yao; Xin Ma; Yan-Xia Wang; An-Zhi Ma; Zheng-Rui Ma; Xiao-Xia Wang; Wei-Xia Kang; Zebing Zeng

doi:10.1007/s10118-026-3829-9

Your Location：

Home >

Browse articles >

Flexible Photonic Films Based on Cellulose Nanocrystals with Temperature-responsive Structural Color

RESEARCH ARTICLE | Updated：2026-10-14

- Flexible Photonic Films Based on Cellulose Nanocrystals with Temperature-responsive Structural Color
- Chinese Journal of Polymer Science Vol. 44, Pages: 1-12(2026)
- Affiliations：
  
  a.College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Northwest Normal University, Lanzhou 730070, China
  b.State Key Laboratory of Chemo/Biosensing and Chemometrics, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha 410082, China
- Author bio：
  
  wenhuanyao@163.com (W.H.Y.)
  zbzeng@hnu.edu.cn (Z.Z.)
- Funds：
- DOI：10.1007/s10118-026-3829-9
  CLC：
- Received：30 May 2026，
  
  Accepted：03 August 2026，
  
  Online First：14 October 2026，
  
  Published：2026-09
- Accepted：
Scan QR Code
Yao, W. H.; Ma, X.; Wang, Y. X.; Ma, A. Z.; Ma, Z. R.; Wang, X. X.; Kang, W. X.; Zeng, Z. Flexible photonic films based on cellulose nanocrystals with temperature-responsive structural color. Chinese J. Polym. Sci. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10118-026-3829-9

Wen-Huan Yao, Xin Ma, Yan-Xia Wang, et al. Flexible Photonic Films Based on Cellulose Nanocrystals with Temperature-responsive Structural Color[J/OL]. Chinese Journal of Polymer Science, 2026, 441-12.
Yao, W. H.; Ma, X.; Wang, Y. X.; Ma, A. Z.; Ma, Z. R.; Wang, X. X.; Kang, W. X.; Zeng, Z. Flexible photonic films based on cellulose nanocrystals with temperature-responsive structural color. Chinese J. Polym. Sci. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10118-026-3829-9 DOI：

Wen-Huan Yao, Xin Ma, Yan-Xia Wang, et al. Flexible Photonic Films Based on Cellulose Nanocrystals with Temperature-responsive Structural Color[J/OL]. Chinese Journal of Polymer Science, 2026, 441-12. DOI： 10.1007/s10118-026-3829-9.

摘要

Abstract

Stimuli-responsive photonic materials based on cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) have attracted considerable interest for their applications in sensing

anti-counterfeiting

and smart windows. However

most existing thermo-responsive CNC composites rely on the lower critical solution temperature (LCST) behavior of polymers

such as poly(

-isopropylacrylamide)

which often restricts the operating temperature range and results in discontinuous or hysteretic optical responses. Herein

we report a new strategy that avoids LCST-driven bulk volume transitions by introducing a cholesterol derivative (Chol-6) as a thermo-responsive steric regulator through its incorporation into a Chol-6-functionalized polyacrylamide (PAM) network within the CNC chiral nematic matrix. A water-soluble prepolymer (PAMC

) bearing Chol-6 side chains was synthesized and co-assembled with glycerol and CNCs

via

evaporation-induced self-assembly (EISA) to produce flexible structurally colored films. Glycerol serves as a plasticizer to overcome the brittleness of pure CNC films and as a hygroscopic agent to facilitate solvent-mediated structural adjustment rather than directly enhancing reversibility. By systematically adjusting the Chol-6/glycerol ratio

the helical pitch and the corresponding structural color can be continuously tuned from blue to red. The optimized 8CNCs-2PAMC

film showed a 64 nm redshift of the reflection maximum upon heating from 25 °C to 80 °C

significantly exceeding that of the Chol-6-free control. Mechanistic studies revealed that the thermal response is primarily governed by the steric regulation of the Chol-6 side groups w

ithin the PAMC

network

which modulates hydrogen-bond-mediated interactions and promotes relaxation-driven helical pitch expansion

while the intrinsic chirality of Chol-6 contributes mainly to the formation and preservation of the chiral organization. This study reveals the unexplored role of chiral compounds in CNC-based photonic materials as thermo-responsive steric regulators beyond conventional chiral twist inducers

providing a new design strategy for tunable thermo-responsive photonic systems without relying primarily on polymer volume phase transitions.

关键词

Keywords

references

Luan, X.; Xie, G.; Tuo, J.; Liu, Y.; Li, L.; Su, Z.; Pang, J. Bioactive cellulose-based thermoresponsive hydrogel with engineered ordered channels for rapid hemostasis and tissue regeneration. Carbohydr. Polym. 2026 , 373 , 124583..

Chu, G. Controlled self-assembly of cellulose nanocrystal as custom-tailored photonics and complex soft matter. Acc. Mater. Res. 2024 , 5 , 1388−1400..

Chu, G.; Camposeo, A.; Vilensky, R.; Vasilyev, G.; Martin, P.; Pisignano, D.; Zussman, E. Printing flowers? Custom-tailored photonic cellulose films with engineered surface topography. Matter 2019 , 1 , 988−1000..

Peng, Y.; liang, Y.; Yu, S.; Wei, X.; Chen, S.; Niu, X.; Li, W.; Chu, G. All-bio-based flexible chiral nematic cellulose nanocrystal films. Biomacromolecules 2025 , 26 , 7621−7631..

Tran, A.; Boott, C. E.; MacLachlan, M. J. Understanding the self-assembly of cellulose nanocrystals—toward chiral photonic materials. Adv. Mater. 2020 , 32 , 1905876..

Chen, L.; Wang, Q.;Hirth, K.; Baez, C.; Agarwal, U. P.; Zhu, J. Y. Tailoring the yield and characteristics of wood cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) using concentrated acid hydrolysis. Cellulose 2015 , 22 , 1753−1762..

Cao, Y.; Lewis, L.; Hamad, W. Y.; MacLachlan, M. J. Pressure-responsive hierarchical chiral photonic aerogels. Adv. Mater. 2019 , 31 , 1808186..

Pan, H.; Zhu, C.; Lu, T.; Lin, J.; Ma, J.; Zhang, D.; Zhu, S. A chiral smectic structure assembled from nanosheets and nanorods. Chem. Commun. 2017 , 53 , 1868−1871..

Cheng, Z.; Ye, H.; Cheng, F.; Li, H.; Ma, Y.; Zhang, Q.; Natan, A.; Mukhopadhyay, A.; Jiao, Y.; Li, Y.; Liu, Y.; Zhu, H. Tuning chiral nematic pitch of bioresourced photonic films via coupling organic acid hydrolysis. Adv. Mater. Interfaces 2019 , 6 , 1802010..

Tran, A.; Hamad, W. Y.; MacLachlan, M. J. Tactoid annealing improves order in self-assembled cellulose nanocrystal films with chiral nematic structures. Langmuir 2018 , 34 , 646−652..

Islam, M. S.; Chen, L.; Sisler, J.; Tam, K. C. Cellulose nanocrystal (CNC)–inorganic hybrid systems: synthesis, properties and applications. J. Mater. Chem. B 2018 , 6 , 864−883..

Grishkewich, N.; Mohammed, N.; Tang, J.; Tam, K. C. Recent advances in the application of cellulose nanocrystals. Curr. Opin. Colloid Interface Sci. 2017 , 29 , 32−45..

Liu, Q.; Mu, L.; Li, J.; He, J.; Liu, H.; Zhu, M.; Feng, P.; Zhu, X.; Sun, C.-L.; Qu, M. Recent advances in cellulose-based paper for flexible pressure sensors: a review. Carbohydr. Polym. 2026 , 373 , 124681..

Yao, K.; Meng, Q.; Bulone, V.; Zhou, Q. Flexible and responsive chiral nematic cellulose nanocrystal/poly (ethylene glycol) composite films with uniform and tunable structural color. Adv. Mater. 2017 , 29 , 1701323..

Kelly, J. A.; Shukaliak, A. M.; Cheung, C. C. Y.; Shopsowitz, K. E.; Hamad, W. Y.; MacLachlan, M. J. Responsive photonic hydrogels based on nanocrystalline cellulose. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2013 , 52 , 8912−8916..

Sun, C.; Zhu, D.; Jia, H.; Lei, K.; Zheng, Z.; Wang, X. Humidity and heat dual response cellulose nanocrystals/poly( N -isopropylacrylamide) composite films with cyclic performance. ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2019 , 11 , 39192−39200..

Sui, Y.; Li, X.; Chang, W.; Wan, H.; Li, W.; Yang, F.; Yu, Z. Z. Multi-responsive nanocomposite membranes of cellulose nanocrystals and poly(N-isopropyl acrylamide) with tunable chiral nematic structures. Carbohydr. Polym. 2020 , 232 , 115778..

Lu, T.; Pan, H.; Ma, J.; Li, Y.; Bokhari, S. W.; Jiang, X.; Zhu, S.; Zhang, D. Cellulose nanocrystals/polyacrylamide composites of high sensitivity and cycling performance to gauge humidity. ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2017 , 9 , 18231−18237..

Wang, T.; Zheng, H.; Guo, Z.; You, C.; Ju, J. Anti-counterfeiting textured pattern. Visual Comput. 2024 , 40 , 2139−2160..

Cathcart, N.; Chen, J. I. L. Sensing biomarkers with plasmonics. Anal. Chem. 2020 , 92 , 7373−7381..

Wu, S.; Sun, H.; Duan, M.; Mao, H.; Wu, Y.; Zhao, H.; Lin, B. Applications of thermochromic and electrochromic smart windows: materials to buildings. Cell Rep. Phys. Sci. 2023 , 4 , 101370..

Joshi, S. Y.; Deshmukh, S. A. Aggregation of functional groups leads to unexpected lowering of PNIPAM LCST. Comput. Mater. Sci. 2025 , 258 , 114108..

Lukach, A.; Thérien-Aubin, H.; Querejeta-Fernández, A.; Pitch, N.; Chauve, G.; Méthot, M.; Bouchard, J.; Kumacheva, E. Coassembly of gold nanoparticles and cellulose nanocrystals in composite films. Langmuir 2015 , 31 , 5033−5041..

Suda, N.; Kumagai, T.; Kim, Y.; Park, S.; Iimura, K.-I. Photoresponsive helicity control in cholesteric liquidcrystals using a chiral arylazopyrazole dopant: chirality amplification and helix inversion. ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2025 , 17 , 38797−38810 ..

He, Z.; Yu, S.; Chen, Z.; Tao, H.; Ma, W.; Wang, P.; Deng, S.; Wang, X.; Chu, G. Evaporative self-assembly of cellulose nanocrystals with binary polymers for asynchronous phase transition and dual structural colors. J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 2025 , 16 , 10216−10225..

Yao, W.; Lan, R.; Li, K.; Zhang, L. Multiple anti-counterfeiting composite film based on cholesteric liquid crystal and QD materials. ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2021 , 13 , 1424−1430..

Sun, J.; Lan, R.; Gao, Y.; Wang, M.; Zhang, W.; Wang, L.; Zhang, L.; Yang, Z.; Yang, H. Stimuli-directed dynamic reconfiguration in self-organized helical superstructures enabled by chemical kinetics of chiral molecular motors. Adv. Sci. 2018 , 5 , 1700613..

Qu, D.; Zheng, H.; Jiang, H.; Xu, Y.; Tang, Z. Chiral photonic cellulose films enabling mechano/chemo responsive selective reflection of circularly polarized light. Adv. Opt. Mater. 2019 , 7 , 1801395..

Zhang, Z. L.; Dong, X.; Fan, Y. N.; Yang, L. M.; He, L.; Song, F.; Wang, X. L.; Wang, Y. Z. Chameleon-inspired variable c oloration enabled by a highly flexible photonic cellulose film. ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2020 , 12 , 46710−46718..

Yu, Z.; Wang, K.; Lu, X. Flexible cellulose nanocrystal-based bionanocomposite film as a smart photonic material responsive to humidity. Int. J. Biol. Macromol. 2021 , 188 , 385−390..

Ohtsuka, Y.; Seki, T.; Takeoka, Y. Thermally tunable hydrogels displaying angle-independent structural colors. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2015 , 54 , 15368−15373..

Xu, M.; Wu, X.; Yang, Y.; Ma, C.; Li, W.; Yu, H.; Chen, Z.; Li, J.; Zhang, K.; Liu, S. Designing hybrid chiral photonic films with circularly polarized room-temperature phosphorescence. ACS Nano 2020 , 14 , 11130−11139..

Zhao, G.; Huang, Y.; Mei, C.; Zhai, S.; Xuan, Y.; Liu, Z.; Pan, M.; Rojas, O. J. Chiral nematic coatings based on cellulose nanocrystals as a multiplexing platform for humidity sensing and dual anticounterfeiting. Small 2021 , 17 , 2103936..

Li, P.; Li, L.; Jeong, K. J.; Yu, X.; Yu, X.; Xu, Y. Homeotropic conc entric helix orientations in chiral nematic cellulose nanocrystal films by local magnetic fields. Adv. Opt. Mater. 2022 , 10 , 2102616..

Pourmoazzen, Z.; Sadeghifar, H.; Chen, J.; Yang, G.; Zhang, K.; Lucia, L. The morphology, self-assembly, and host-guest properties of cellulose nanocrystals surface grafted with cholesterol. Carbohydr. Polym. 2020 , 233 , 115840..

Sun, J.; Zhang, C.; Yuan, Z.; Ji, X.; Fu, Y.; Li, H.; Qin, M. Composite films with ordered carbon nanotubes and cellulose nanocrystals. J. Phys. Chem. C 2017 , 121 , 8976−8981..

Liao, M.; Wan, P.; Wen, J.; Gong, M.; Wu, X.; Wang, Y.; Shi, R.; Zhang, L. Wearable, healable, and adhesive epidermal sensors assembled from mussel-inspired conductive hybrid hydrogel framework. Adv. Funct. Mater. 2017 , 27 , 1703852..

Li, W.; Xu, M.; Ma, C.; Liu, Y.; Zhou, J.; Chen, Z.; Wang, Y.; Yu, H.; Li, J.; Liu, S. Tunable upconverted circularly polarized luminescence in cellulose nanocrystal based chiral photonic films. ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2019 , 11 , 23512−23519..

Jia, S.; Du, J.; Xie, Y.; Yang, B.; Tao, T.; Yu, L.; Zhang, Y.; Zhang, J.; Tang, W.; Gong, J. Cellulose-based photonic crystal film with multiple stimulus-responsive performances. Chem. Mater. 2024 , 36 , 7967−7975..

Dong, X.; Li, D.; Wu, J. M.; Zhang, Z. L.; Wang, Z. L.; Song, F.; Wang, X. L.; Wang, Y. Z. Non-iridescent and wide-color-range structural coloration enabled by cellulose nanocrystals with a controlled long-range photonic structure and helical pitch. ACS Sustainable Chem. Eng. 2022 , 10 , 10641−10648..

Chen, H.; Hou, A.; Zheng, C.; Tang, J.; Xie, K.; Gao, A. Light- and humidity-responsive chiral nematic photonic crystal films based on cellulose nanocrystals. ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2020 , 12 , 24505−24511..

Xu, M.; Li, W.; Ma, C.; Yu, H.; Wu, Y.; Wang, Y.; Chen, Z.; Li, J.; Liu, S. Multifunctional chiral nematic cellulose nanocrystals/glycerol structural colored nanocomposites for intelligent responsive films, photonic inks and iridescent coatings. J. Mater. Chem. C 2018 , 6 , 5391−5400..

He, Y. D.; Zhang, Z. L.; Xue, J.; Wang, X. H.; Song, F.; Wang, X. L.; Zhu, L. L.; Wang, Y. Z. Biomimetic optical cellulose nanocrystal films w ith controllable iridescent color and environmental stimuli-responsive chromism. ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2018 , 10 , 5805−5811..

Zhang, Z.; Chen, Z.; Wang, Y.; Zhao, Y. Bioinspired conductive cellulose liquid-crystal hydrogels as multifunctional electrical skins. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 2020 , 117 , 18310−18316..

Zhang, P.; Liu, F.; Liao, Q.; Yao, H.; Geng, H.; Cheng, H.; Li, C.; Qu, L. A microstructured graphene/poly ( N -isopropylacrylamide) membrane for intelligent solar water evaporation. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2018 , 57 , 16343−16347..

Zhang, R.; Chu, G.; Vasilyev, G.; Martin, P.; Camposeo, A.; Persano, L.; Pisignano, D.; Zussman, E. Hybrid nanocomposites for 3D optics: using interpolymer complexes with cellulose nanocrystals. ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2019 , 11 , 19324−19330..

Li, X.; Liu, J.; Zhang, X. Pressure/temperature dual-responsive cellulose nanocrystal hydrogels for on-demand schemochrome patterning. Adv. Funct. Mater. 2023 , 33 , 2306208..

Views

Downloads

CSCD

Alert me when the article has been cited

Submit

Tools

Publicity Resources

Multifunctional Polyurethane with High Strength, Toughness, and Self-healing Capacity via Tannic Acid-modified Cellulose Nanocrystals

Highly Stretchable and Tunable Thermo-fluorochromic Polymer Elastomer through Eu3+ Dynamic Coordination Cross-linking

Preparation and Structure-Property Regulation Mechanism of Reversible Thermochromic Polydiacetylene

Highly Regio- and trans-Selective Ring-opening Metathesis Polymerization of Chiral Aza-norbornene with a Simple Phenylimido-Tungsten Catalyst

Porous Organic Polymers for Photocatalytic Hydrogen Peroxide Production: Recent Advances and Future Perspectives

Related Author

Yong Wang

Jing-Hui Yang

Xiao-Dong Qi

De-Xiang Sun

Chao-Qun Wu

Dan-Min Wu

Yi-Jing Nie

Qiu-Li Tan

Related Institution

Key Laboratory of Advanced Technologies of Materials (Ministry of Education), School of Chemistry, Southwest Jiaotong University

Institute of Polymer Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Jiangsu University

School of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering, State Key Laboratory Base of Novel Functional Materials and Preparation Science, Ningbo University

University of Chinese Academy of Sciences

Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences

⁰