Light-Triggered Programming of Hydrogel Properties Using Sleeping Photoactive Polymer Nanoparticles

A key characteristic of programmable hydrogels is that their physical and chemical properties can be changed postsynthetically. In order to achieve this, we used sub-50 nm photoacid/base generator nanoparticles, which could alter the charge density/polarity of a host macroscopic hydrogel (e.g., polyacrylamide). The photoacid generator (PAG) nanoparticles, were composed of poly(methyl methacrylate-co-4,5-dimethoxy-2-nitrobenzyl...