Chromogenic polymer gels for reversible transparency and color control

A current overview about the preparation and characterization of novel chromogenic polymer materials is given. The topic of chromogenic materials has developed extremely rapidly in the last few years. Among them, thermotropic and thermochromic polymer gel networks have met with growing interest, because of their advanced properties. These novel polymer gels exhibit pronounced changes in transparency and/or color over a modest temperature range. Some of them possess a temperature independent volume, which is an essential condition for many future technical applications