Responsive colloidal photonic crystals (PCs) are of great importance for the extended applications in the fields of chemical sensing

smart display and so on

owing to the visible structure color/optic signal change to exterior stimuli.This paper presented the research progress about the improvement of the response rate of swell-responsive polymer PCs

which covered the responsive mechanism and critical influencing factors

including dimension of PC hydrogel

physical structure/chemical properties of polymer chains and crosslinking degree of gel network.In addition

response rate of non-swollen PCs with other response types

such as magnetic

electric

optical or mechanical response were also involved.Understanding the performance of these PCs will be helpful for the development of novel and advanced responsive systems.