Plastic with a selective memory

PhyOrg.com reports:

Picture a flower that opens when facing the sunlight. In work that mimics that sensitivity to light, an MIT engineer and German colleagues have created the first plastics that can be deformed and temporarily fixed in a second, new shape by illumination with light having certain wavelengths. These programmed materials will only switch back to their original shape when exposed to light of specific different wavelengths.

The work, to be reported in the April 14 issue of Nature, could have potential applications in a variety of fields, including minimally invasive surgery. Imagine, for example, a "string" of plastic that a doctor threads into the body through a tiny incision. When activated by light via a fiber-optic probe, that slender string might change into a corkscrew-shaped stent for keeping blood vessels open.

Read the article here.