2022 Volume 95 Issue 4 Pages 132-138
In the final series of this subject, the design, synthesis, and function of dynamic soft materials utilizing the rotaxane’s structural characteristics as the stimuli-responsive polymers are discussed in the two reviews including the present paper. A few rotaxane-cross-linked polymers were described as the dynamic soft materials capable of showing recyclable and photo-decross-linkable functions, i.e. rotaxane-cross-linked polymers of which characteristics came from the dynamic nature of disulfide bond via thiol-disulfide interexchange equilibrium and photodissociation of S-S bond. Reversible linear-cyclic polymer topological transformation was discussed using a few rotaxane switch-driven systems. The reversible linear-cyclic topological transformation was demonstrated using [1] polyrotaxane. The steadily repeated linear-cyclic polymer topological transformation was confirmed with the cyclic polymers prepared by an efficient synthetic method involving spontaneous cyclization process which enables the large-quantity synthesis, suggesting the significance of the stable (macro)molecular rotaxane switches. The development of the dynamic soft materials based on the linear-branched polymer topological transformation will be discussed in the last review of this series.
