Smart materials: Storing information on polymers

Polymers are a class of materials with great potential. Equipped with different characteristics, they can be used in a wide variety of applications. A research team led by JARA-SOFT scientist Prof. Stephan Förster has now demonstrated thermal writing and storage of information in a responsive polymer for the first time. This enables the production of thermal data storage and carrier materials that release active pharmaceutical ingredients in a temperature-controlled manner.

Information can be written thermally into the responsive material with a laser or simply with a cooled or heated pen, for example on a display. The polymer has two thermal states, which can additionally be controlled by pH, enabling logic circuits. Since many responsive materials have two thermal states, this principle for encoding and storing information is potentially transferable to a large number of materials.

Further information is available on the website of Forschungszentrum Jülich: https://www.fz-juelich.de/SharedDocs/Pressemitteilungen/UK/EN/2022/notifications/2022-02-09-thermal-writing.html?nn=448936