Advances in self-healing optical materials

In recent years, new approaches for the self-repair of optical materials have been proposed, in particular for transparent coatings and systems for solar energy conversion. Moreover, light has been exploited for remotely triggering self-healing in optically responsive materials. This ambitious goal required state of the art knowledge in different disciplines and fine engineering of materials architecture. Here we highlight the recent advances in the field and provide some possible directions for the near future.