Recent Advances on Stimuli-Responsive Smart Materials and their Applications

Abstract

Stimuli-responsive materials have raised major attention in digital technology, sensors and biomedical applications owing to quick response towards external stimuli, for example light, voltage, pressure, temperature, mechanical friction and pH. Nevertheless, action of external stimuli on organic materials affects their internal physico-chemical properties and facilitates improved thermal/photo stability, tuning detection sensitivity, accuracy and biocompatibility. This review article highlights recent progress on stimuli-responsive materials with mixed valence species, viologens, twisting chirality, crystalline/amorphous, sol-gel phase transitions and resulting supramolecular nanostructures via non-covalent interactions. These materials can be applied in flexible electronics, drug delivery, detection of pollutants and bioimaging. Thus, the demand for widespread research on development of stimuli-responsive materials are requisite to resolve the challenges pertaining to stability and sensitivity of devices for design in comprehensive technology.

Keywords: nanostructures; self-assembly; smart materials stimuli responsive materials; supramolecular chemistry.