A self-healing hydrogel is prepared by crosslinking acrylamide with a host-guest macro-crosslinker assembled from poly(β-cyclodextrin) nanogel and azobenzeneacrylamide. The photoisomerizable azobenzene moiety can change its binding affinity with β-cyclodextrin, therefore the crosslinking density and rheology property of the hydrogel can be tuned with light stimulus. The hydrogel can repair its wound autonomously through the dynamic host-guest interaction. In addition, the wounded hydrogel will lose its ability of self-healing when exposed to ultraviolet light, and the self-healing behavior can be recovered upon the irradiation of visible light. The utilizing of host-guest macro-crosslinking approach manifests the as-prepared hydrogel reversible and light-switchable self-healing property, which would broaden the potential applications of self-healing polymers.

Front Cover: Self‐assembly of microgels is an efficient strategy of constructing intelligent material but reversible self‐assembly of microgels remains a challenge. Utilizing the light‐responsive host–guest interaction between an azobenzene‐nanogel and an α‐cyclodextrin microgel, Ping Wang, Qiaofeng Yang, Zhipeng Ye, Chuanzhuang Zhao,* and Jingfa Yang in article number https://doi.org/10.1002/macp.201700280 propose a facile method to realize the assembly/disassembly of soft colloids with light stimuli.

Self‐assembly is an efficient strategy of constructing microgel‐based intelligent materials. However, it remains a challenge to realize the reversible self‐assembly of microgels. Herein, a method to guide the self‐assembly of soft colloids with light‐stimuli is proposed, utilizing the light‐responsive host–guest interaction between an azobenzene functionalized nanogel (the guest colloid) and an α‐cyclodextrin functionalized microgel (the host colloid). The two colloids can form a stable colloid cluster when the surface of the host colloid is fully packed with the guest colloids. The colloid cluster can disassemble when irradiated with UV light and reassemble when irradiated with visible light. The reversible colloidal self‐assembly can be controlled by the interplay between the supramolecular and covalent crosslinking, and can also be adjusted by the addition of competitive host molecules. Besides the light‐sensitivity, the colloid cluster inherits the deformability and temperature‐sensitivity from its parent colloids. These features are different from the supramolecular self‐assembly of hard colloids or macroscopic gels, and manifest the as‐prepared colloid cluster potential building blocks of light‐responsive materials.