Electrochromic iontronic devices based on nanoscale cell membrane-inspired hydrated ion channels in Nafion solid polyelectrolyte

¹ Shaanxi Key Laboratory for Intelligent Robots, School of Mechanical Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University - Xi'an, 710049, China
² Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Special Robot Technology, School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Hohai University - Changzhou Campus, Changzhou, 213022, China
³ State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, School of Material Science and Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University - Xi'an, 710049, China

^(a) liboxjtu@mail.xjtu.edu.cn (corresponding author)

Received: 10 September 2019
Accepted: 20 December 2019

Abstract

An ion channel in a cell membrane offers a path of ion migration for perception and communication in biology. Under this inspiration, in this paper, the hydrated ion channel is introduced in a solid Nafion polyelectrolyte for electrochromic (EC) iontronic device based on WO₃. The hydrated ion channels can effectively regulate the coloration when gating the ion migration and injection into the WO₃. The coloration is characterized at different voltages in time responses. A transmission change over 50% at 400 nm is realized. This offers a new route to design functional EC iontronics that encoded the bio-mechanism.