Smart substrates: Switchable interfaces based on multiresponsive hybrid materials

Interactions between different materials or animate and inanimate matter are of fundamental importance in all areas of materials science research. Intelligent materials, with the help of which such interactions can be controlled and programmed, offer one of the most interesting challenges in the field, which materials chemists, physicists and bioscientists at the University of Jena are tackling in a joint research network. The aim is to develop novel materials that react to combinations of different stimuli with significant changes in their properties. Wound dressings that can release healing agents through irradiation with light, for example, are already available today. Such a wound dressing becomes intelligent by making the release of medication dependent on an additional stimulus, for example an inflammatory reaction, which it recognises independently.