Flexible Azo-Polyimide-Based Smart Surface with Photoregulatable Surface Micropatterns: Toward Rewritable Information Storage and Wrinkle-Free Device Fabrication

Stimulus-sensitive materials are of great fascination in surface and interface science owing to their dynamically tunable surface properties and/or morphologies. Herein, we have synthesized an azobenzene-containing polyimide (azo-PI) with enhanced chain flexibility for the fabrication of photosensitive surface patterns on a film/substrate wrinkle system or wrinkle-free devices. The phototriggered cis–trans isomerization kinetics of azobenzene groups in the novel azo-PI with various chain structures were systematically investigated. On the basis of the characteristics of stress relaxation that azobenzene reversible cis–trans isomerization induces in the wrinkled azo-PI film/substrate system, a variety of rewritable visual surface patterns with high resolution and a long legibility time (>30 days) could be easily constructed via visible-light irradiation, enabling the wrinkled azo-PI surfaces to be used as rewritable information storage media. Meanwhile, because of the visible-light irradiation strategy, these photoresponsive surfaces could find potential application in the fabrication of wrinkle-free flexible devices. This study not only sheds light on the influence of the azo-polymer chain structure on its photoresponsive behavior but also provides a versatile strategy for realizing tailor-made smart surface patterns on multilayer functional devices.