Tuning MOFs: When a metal-organic framework (MOF) with an ordered three-dimensional macroporous structure is integrated into a film, the resulting materials have an additional optical element, which can be used as a general and effective signal transducer. This, in combination with the hierarchical pore structure, makes these films interesting dynamic photonic materials with potential applications in sensors.
Carbon sandwich: When a pyrrole‐containing surfactant is polymerized between layers of silica (see picture; pyrrole is red), subsequent carbonization and removal of the silica template yields large, pure, single‐layer graphene sheets. The procedure, which employs mild conditions, is controllable and can be used to produce micrometer‐sized graphene sheets on a gram scale.
Based on the combination of the unique features of both polyionic liquids and spherical colloidal crystals, a new class of inverse opaline spheres with a series of distinct properties was fabricated. It was found that such photonic spheres could not only be used as stimuli-responsive photonic microgels, but also serve as multifunctional microspheres that mimic the main characteristics of conventional molecules, including intrinsic optical properties, specific molecular recognition, reactivity and derivatization, and anisotropy.
Ionic liquids (ILs) have many attractive properties. For example, their physical and chemical properties can be tuned by a judicious design of the cations and anions, making them ideal candidates for designable building blocks of stimuli-responsive materials. Numerous IL-based stimuli-responsive materials have been developed by chemical modification (covalent, coordination, or ionic functionalization) or physical blending of ILs with other functional materials. The flexible tunability of ILs provides a great opportunity to achieve the desired physicochemical properties for taskspecific applications, such as sensing, display, gas capture, and so on. This review aims to address the recent advances in IL-based stimuli-responsive materials, which are categorized by the type of external stimuli, including gas-responsive, organic solvent-responsive, ion-responsive, pH-responsive, thermo-responsive, photo-responsive, and electro-responsive materials.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.