On September 20, the research group led by Prof. Ji Xiaofan published a paper entitled "Codes in Code: AIE Supramolecular Adhesive Hydrogels Store Huge Amounts of Information" on Advanced Materials.

With the continuous advancement of information technology, the requirements for the information storage capacity of materials are getting higher and higher. However, information code materials usually only store a single piece of information. In order to improve their storage capacity, aggregation-induced emission (AIE) supramolecular adhesive hydrogels with different fluorescent colors are prepared, and a "Codes in Code" method is used to demonstrate the storage capacity for large amounts of information. Four kinds of poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) supramolecular hydrogels with different fluorescent colors are prepared; based on the hydrogen bonds on the hydrogel surface, these hydrogels can be assembled into a hydrogel, G5, which shows multiple fluorescent colors under the irradiation of UV light. When many 1D barcode patterns or/and 2D code patterns are incorporated into G5, not only a kind of 3D information but also plenty of 1D or/and 2D information can be stored. Therefore, the information codes prepared by the “Codes in Code” method can store a large amount of information.

Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) is the signature unit of the first author. Master student Yang Yabi is the first author; Prof. Ji Xiaofan (HUST) and Academician Tang Benzhong (The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen) are the joint corresponding authors of the paper. This work is sponsored by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 22001087) and other funds.

Link to the paper: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adma.202105418