Microgel Photonics: Towards Multifunctional Optical Platforms

Dear Colleagues,

In the last decade, photonics has emerged as a major interdisciplinary field of science and technology with a focus on the transport and manipulation of light. Rapid progress in photonics has been achieved because of continuous advances in nanotechnologies, materials science, optics, physics, and the rapid development of micro- and nano-fabrication techniques. Although new functionalities and unprecedented performance have been successfully demonstrated and achieved so far, there is a continuous demand for the development of novel passive and active photonic platforms arising from the judicious interaction of light with novel functional and smart materials.

Within this class of materials, polymeric microgels have gained increasing attention because their unique characteristics such as multi-responsivity, controllable and reversible conformational changes, size, versatility, reusability and tailor-made properties make them the ideal material to be used in combination with photonic principles and methodologies based on the confinement and control of light at the sub-wavelength scale.

When interacting with microgels, light can be used not only to sense (for diagnostics and sensors) but also to induce (for tunable actuators and drug delivery systems) their volume phase transitions in a controlled fashion, opening new avenues for the development of advanced multifunctional sensors, reconfigurable and tunable photonic components, and controlled actuators. Thanks to the variety of their chemical composition, microgels can be synthesized with different swelling/deswelling behavior and mechanical properties tailored to specific applications. Novel design criteria and experimental methodologies to control the functionality of microgels are continuously encouraging the further development of highly interesting concepts in the area of photonic system technology and science. Within this context, this Special Issue aims to gather a prestigious collection of key studies devoted to the technology of ‘Microgel Photonics’.

The main topics include, but are not limited to:

- material synthesis, integration and engineering processes.

- multifunctional sensors for chemical, biochemical and biomedical applications

- tunable photonic platforms

- light-driven micro actuators

- light-triggered drug delivery systems

- development of novel theranostic platforms

- new applications

Prof. Dr. Andrea Cusano,
Dr Armando Ricciardi,
Dr Alberto Micco,
Dr. MArtino Giaquinto,
Dr. Anna Aliberti
Guest Editors

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