Stimulus-responsive shape memory materials: A review

Stimulus-responsive materials are able to response to a particular stimulus, such as, heat, chemical, and light. As such, they are smarter and more intelligent than ordinary materials. While in most stimulus-responsive materials, the result is limited to a change in their certain physical/chemical properties, stimulus-responsive shape memory materials (SMMs) are able to recover their original shape, after being quasi-plastically distorted. SMMs are ideal for an integrated intelligent system, in which “The material is the machine” that can sense and then generate reactive motion as pre-programmed.