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Polymer hydrogels are soft materials consisting of a network of hydrophilic polymer with high water content [1].Generally,their inherent mechanical weakness and brittleness or poor deformability are inevitable problems that seriously limit their industrial and biomedical applications.Nanocomposite(NC)hydrogeis is a type of hydrogels that are reinforced by various nano building blocks,and therefore have high mechanical properties [2].Moreover,the NC hydrogels might also have multi-functions when the functional nanoparticles(NPs)such as magnetic,conductive NPs are incorporated into the hydrogels.However,the performance of the nano-building blocks is usually deteriorated by aggregation.Belonging to a class of catecholamines with excellent biocompatibility,dopamine can spontaneously self-polymerize into polydopamine(PDA)and form adhesive coatings on a wide range of substrates,which was inspired by the properties of adhesive proteins in marine mussels [3].Besides the extensive research on its self-polymerization,dopamine has also been widely used as a surface-capping agent to facilitate the uniform distribution of NPs.In our study,it is found that the NPs were successfully coated by PDA coatings,which lead to a stable dispersion in the aqueous solution.These PDA coated NPs have been used as a nano reinforcement to form NC hydrogels with high toughness,superior stretchablity and multifunctional physical properties.The development of PDA coated NPs is a novel method to improve the performance of the NPs and broaden the applications of the functional NPs.