Self-Reporting Materials: From Fundamentals to Applications

Dear Colleagues,

Nature has been inspiring scientists with its rich repertoire of materials and systems that can intelligently, and, thus, dynamically, adjust their structure and properties in response to endogenous or exogenous stimuli. In sharp contrast, common conventional man-made materials are generally static, in both form and function, and do not have the ability to sense, detect, report damage, and/or heal. Eventually, with the advances in organic synthesis, polymer chemistry, and materials science, synthetic materials chemists are gradually shifting their attention toward dynamic smart materials. Materials scientists are en route to designing artificial soft materials that merge the sophisticated features of intelligence. Among the plethora of smart (intelligent) materials, materials that autonomously sense their state and report damage/stress/deformation/release have attracted a lot of attention in the last decade. Although there have been considerable efforts to optimize their synthesis, and fully explore their potential by the rational design of novel functional architectures, the field of self-reporting (also referred to as self-sensing or self-monitoring) materials is yet to be discovered. Thus, this Special Issue aims to will represent the current state-of-the-art and compile systematic information on self-reporting mechanisms, characterization techniques of self-reporting performance, structure–property relationships, and highlight the range of applications of self-reporting materials. This Special Issue will also provide the community with new ideas and perspectives, and, therefore, not only original full articles and communications, but also reviews are welcome.

Dr. Hatice Mutlu
Guest Editor

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