Fig. 4: Appearance-changing functionalities, operational performances, and cycling stabilities of TBN- and PTBN-based systems.

A Schematic of a visible appearance-changing system undergoing monitoring during electrical actuation under standard indoor lighting in ambient atmosphere. B Representative digital camera images of an appearance-changing device before (left) and after (right) electrical actuation with a bias of ~3.2 kV. Note the change in area and color lightness for the blue-brown annulated circle as a result of electrical actuation. C Top: Plot of the areal strain as a function of the applied voltage for the devices’ outer annuli (blue line) and inner circles (brown line). Bottom: Plot of the lightness modulation as a function of the applied voltage for the devices’ outer annuli (blue line) and inner circles (brown line). The error bars represent standard deviations. D Top: Plot of the areal strain as a function of time for a representative device’s outer annulus (blue line) and inner circle (brown line) over three consecutive on/off actuation cycles. Bottom: Plot of the lightness modulation as a function of time for a representative device’s outer annulus (blue line) and inner circle (brown line) over three consecutive on/off actuation cycles. E Plot of the lightness modulation as a function of the actuation cycle number for a representative device’s outer annulus (blue line) and inner circle (brown line) over 500 sequential actuation cycles.