Light-Driven Shape-Memory Porous Films with Precisely Controlled Dimensions

Shape-memory polymers (SMPs) are an intriguing class of smart materials possessing reversible shape change and recovery capabilities. Effective routes to shape-memory porous films (SMPFs) are few and limited in scope owing to the difficulty in manipulating the shape change of pores by conventional methods. Herein we report an unconventional strategy for crafting light-driven SMPFs by judiciously constructing highly ordered porous films via a facile “breath figure” approach, followed by sequential vapor crosslinking and nondestructive directional light manipulation. Micropores can thus be transformed into other shapes including rectangle, rhombus and size-reduced micropores at room temperature. The transformed micropores can be reverted to their original shapes by either thermal annealing or UV irradiation. As such, this strategy expands the rich diversity of SMPs accessible.