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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2018 Mar 30.
Published in final edited form as: Biomater Sci. 2014 Apr 1;2(5):766–774. doi: 10.1039/c3bm60321k

Figure 1.

Figure 1

Schematic of phase transitions of photoreconfigurable hydrogel networks. PLGA-PEG-PLGA solutions (SOL) are incubated with melanin nanoparticles (MelNP) prior to the formation of MelNP-doped physically crosslinked hydrogels (GEL). Micelles are formed from triblock PLGA-PEG-PLGA in the SOL phase (a). Adsorption process of some micelles on MelNP is hypothesized (b). Physical crosslinks are formed as the temperature increases above the SOL-GEL transition. Irradiation of hydrogels with UV light rapidly increases the temperature of the network through efficient photon-phonon conversion, eventually leading to disintegration and precipitation (SOL-precipitate).