Extremely stretchable thermosensitive hydrogels by introducing slide-ring polyrotaxane cross-linkers and ionic groups into the polymer network.

Stimuli-sensitive hydrogels changing their volumes and shapes in response to various stimulations have potential applications in multiple fields. However, these hydrogels have not yet been commercialized due to some problems that need to be overcome. One of the most significant problems is that conventional stimuli-sensitive hydrogels are usually brittle.

Wave propagation through Cantor-set media: chaos, scaling, and fractal structures.

Propagation of waves through Cantor-set media is investigated by renormalization-group analysis. For specific values of wave numbers, transmission coefficients are shown to be governed by the logistic map and, in the chaotic region, they show sensitive dependence on small changes in parameters of the system such as the index of refraction. For other values of wave numbers, our numerical results suggest that light transmits completely or reflects completely by the Cantor-set media Cinfinity.