Welcome to the
Laboratory of Soft & Wet Matter

LSW at Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan ~ We belong to here

We are trying to uncover key design principles that Nature uses to build living things.

Click on the photo to explore !
Tough gel	Gel composite	Self-healing gel	Self-growing gel
Adhesion gel	Self-patterning gel	Colorful gel	Low friction gel
Gel + bioceramics	Medical gel	Adhesive gels for marine environments	Quick thermo- stiffening gel

May/20/2020--new!--
Our new gel showing an instant thermal stiffening has been featured on research outreach's article "This polymer hardens as it heats up".

Apr/30/2020--new!--
Our work "Tough Particle‐Based Double Network Hydrogels for Functional Solid Surface Coatings" published in Advanced Materials Interfaces, is one of the journal's top 10% downloaded paper among work published between January 2018 and December 2019.

Apr/30/2020--new!--
Our works "A Facile Method to Fabricate Anisotropic Hydrogels with Perfectly Aligned Hierarchical Fibrous Structures," "Hydrophobic Hydrogels with Fruit‐Like Structure and Functions," "Tough Hydrogels with Fast, Strong, and Reversible Underwater Adhesion Based on a Multiscale Design," "Instant Thermal Switching from Soft Hydrogel to Rigid Plastics Inspired by Thermophile Proteins ," published in Advanced Materials, are one of the journal's top 10% downloaded papers among work published between January 2018 and December 2019.

Apr/28/2020--new!--
Dr. Hailong Fan's artwork has been chosen to appear on the front cover of Macromolecules Volume 53 Number 8.

Apr/1/20200--new!--
Dr. Takayuki Nonoyama has been promoted to Specially Appointed Associate Professor at Faculty of Advanced Life Science. Dr. Hailong Fan has received a specially appointed assistant professor position at WPI-ICReDD, Creative Research Institution (CRIS).

Apr/1/20200--new!--
LSW hosts Dr. Tomoki Yasui for one year, a visiting research fellow of "Research Fellowship for Young Scientists from JSPS."

Mar/17/2020--new!--
Our article "Adjacent cationic–aromatic sequences yield strong electrostatic adhesion of hydrogels in seawater" was one of the most read Nature Communications articles in chemistry and materials science in 2019.

Feb/25/2020
Mr. Fukao's artwork has been chosen to appear on the front cover of Macromolecules Volume 53 Number 4.

Feb/7/2020
Ms. Zhen Tao's first-authored paper ""Fabrication of Tough Hydrogel Composites from Photoresponsive Polymers to Show Double-Network Effect" published on ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, Mr. Martin Frauenlob's first-authored paper "Modulation and Characterization of the Double Network Hydrogel Surface-Bulk Transition" published on Macromolecules, and Mr. Takahiro Matsuda's first-authored paper "Fabrication of Tough and Stretchable Hybrid Double-Network Elastomers Using Ionic Dissociation of Polyelectrolyte in Nonaqueous Media" published on Chemistry of Materials won the IGP 2019 Publications Award.

Jan/28/2020
Our new gel showing an instant thermal stiffening has been featured on Innovation News Network's article "Meet the phase-separation polymeric gel".

Jan/27/2020
Dr. Nonoyama's artwork has been chosen to appear on the back cover of Advanced Materials Volume 32 Number 4.

Jan/17/2020
For Chinese-speakers, our group works in 2019 are summarized on WeChat Official Accounts Platform's article "Frontier of Polymer Science."

Jan/7/2020
Our colorful gel has been featured on c&en's article "Chemistry in Pictures: Stretchy structural color."