Neither of us can remember people talking about stimuli‐responsive polymers when we were students. Even though this was still in the last century, it was almost 70 years after Staudinger's seminal paper “Über Polymerisation”![1]By the time we entered graduate school in the early 1990 s, the first papers on polymer light emitting diodes appeared, while research on electrically conducting, nonlinear optical, and other “functional” polymers was already in full swing. Looking back, there were some stimuli‐responsive materials that were around at the time,[2–6]but it took the better part of the last 30 years until the field had developed into what we think is one of the most vibrant areas of polymer science.[8–12]Before the potential usefulness of this class of materials was recognized, researchers were focused on developing polymeric materials that would not respond to external influences, and in fact maintain (in particular) their mechanical properties in a wide range of environments. This has led to the development of many environmentally robust polymers, which have come to impact basically every aspect of our daily life. Ironically, this long‐sought stability now comes back to haunt us in the form of plastic pollution, but this is another story. The concept of materials that adapt their properties in response to changing environmental conditions might appear like a complete reversal with respect to the original goals of creating stable materials. However, eventually a) it was recognized that materials that respond to a specific stimulus in a predictable and useful manner would significantly broaden the potential usefulness of polymers, and b) the field of polymer science had developed to the point where the rational design, preparation, and characterization of such materials became possible. The expression
- PAR ID:
- 10120966
- Publisher / Repository:
- Wiley Blackwell (John Wiley & Sons)
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Israel Journal of Chemistry
- Volume:
- 60
- Issue:
- 1-2
- ISSN:
- 0021-2148
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- p. 100-107
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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