Rewritable, light-driven recordings in a full-colour fluorescent polydimethylsiloxane elastomer

Current approaches to demonstrate light-driven writing enabling multiple “write-erase” cycles are mostly based on photochromic materials requiring complex synthesis processes. Here, we show a new approach to realize rewritable, light-driven recordings in conventional dye-incorporating poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) by using a laser-induced photobleaching technique. Upon selective photobleaching of red dyes, the PDMS film emits patterned letters of different colours (blue or green) from their backgrounds. We also found that the diffusion of dye molecules into the bleached region promoted a self-healing characteristic that could erase the patterned letters, which enables us to rewrite different letters using the same PDMS. This novel method of light-driven writing can be applied effectively in many research fields, including secure printing and optical storage devices, and will significantly advance future writing applications.