Shape‐Memory Materials: Shape‐Memory Microfluidics (Adv. Funct. Mater. 38/2013)

Vascularization in complex organisms plays an important role in reducing the characteristic diffusion length scale of tissue structures with large dimensions. This work by C. J. Bettinger and co-workers defines biomimetic strategies for vascularization of synthetic shape-memory materials. On page 4832, embedded microvascular networks accelerate phase transitions and increase recovery rates in stimuli-responsive polymers by reducing the characteristic diffusion length scale of the bulk material.