Chiro‐Optoelectronic Encodable Multilevel Thin Film Electronic Elements with Active Bio‐Organic Electrolyte Layer

Abstract

It is suggested that chiral photonic bio‐enabled integrated thin‐film electronic elements can pave the base for next‐generation optoelectronic processing, including quantum coding for encryption as well as integrated multi‐level logic circuits. Despite recent advances, thin‐film electronics for encryption applications with large‐scale reconfigurable and multi‐valued logic systems are not reported to date. Herein, highly secure optoelectronic encryption logic elements are demonstrated by facilitating the humidity‐sensitive helicoidal organization of chiral nematic phases of cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) as an active electrolyte layer combined with printed organic semiconducting channels. The ionic‐strength controlled tunable photonic band gap facilitates distinguishable and quantized 13‐bit electric signals triggered by repetitive changes of humidity, voltage, and the polarization state of the incident light. As a proof‐of‐concept, the integrated circuits responding to circularly polarized light and humidity are demonstrated as unique physically unclonable functional devices with high‐level logic rarely achieved. The convergence between functional nanomaterials and the multi‐valued logic thin‐film electronic elements can provide optoelectronic counterfeiting, imaging, and information processing with multilevel logic nodes.