English Abstract

Structural Colored Gel Yukikazu Takeoka Masayoshi Watanabe Yokohama National University, Kanagawa, Japan Nippon Gomu Kyokaishi, (2004), 77(5), 155-158 General Review in Japanese. Abstract A periodically ordered interconnecting porous structure could be imprinted in hydrogels by using closest packing silica colloidal crystals as mesoscopically sized templates.The interconnecting porous structure provides fast response to an infinitesimal change of environment for reversible swelling and shrinking of the hydrogels,while the periodically ordered mesoscopical structure endows a structural color in the gel.The structural color with different optical behaviors can be tuned by simply changing the amount of the cross-linker in the pre-gel solutions.The structural color imprinted in the gel is quickly synchronized with the change in the volume of the gels.The newly invented porous hydrogels possess optical properties as environmentally sensitive smart gels. Keywords: Hydrogel, Colloidal crystal, Structural color

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