Biological Material Interfaces as Inspiration for Mechanical and Optical Material Designs

Abstract

The extraordinary properties of biological materials often result from their sophisticated hierarchical structures. Through multilevel and cross-scale structural designs, biological materials offset the weakness of their individual building blocks and enhance performance at multiple length scales to match the multifunctional needs of organisms. One essential merit of hierarchical structure is that it can optimize the interfacial features of the “building blocks” at different length scales, from the molecular level to the macroscale. Understanding the roles of biological material interfaces (BMIs) on the determination of properties and functions of biological materials has become a growing interdisciplinary research area in recent years. A pivotal aim of these studies is to use BMIs as inspiration for developing bioinspired and biomimetic materials and devices with advanced structures and functions. Given these considerations, this review aims to comprehensively discuss the structure–property–function relationships of BMIs in nature. We particularly focus on the discussion of BMIs and their inspired materials from mechanical and optical perspectives because these two directions are the most well-investigated and closely related. The challenges and directions of design and fabrication of BMI-inspired mechanical and optical materials are also discussed. This review is expected to garner interest from advanced material communities as well as environmental, nanotechnology, food processing, and engineering fields.

Diffusioosmotic and convective flows induced by a nonelectrolyte concentration gradient

“…Living organisms rely on transport over many length scales, including those in the 10-to 100-µm range where phoretic transport can be faster than both diffusion (41) and fluid flow. Biological surfaces and particles are complex, heterogeneous, and dynamic (61,(65)(66)(67). We have shown that for nonelectrolyte D O , even simple properties like the concentration dependence of viscosity can surprise.…”

Formation, Structure, and Mechanical Performance of Silk Nanofibrils Produced by Heat‐Induced Self‐Assembly

“…These well‐organized hierarchical arrangements of nanoscale fibrils, forming central features in sophisticated structures, contribute highly to the mechanical performance and functions of biologically originating animal silks. [ 1–8 ] SNFs generally show bead‐like structure, comprising of alternating β‐sheet nanocrystals and amorphous regions. Mechanically, the amorphous regions govern the elasticity of silks, whereas β‐sheet nanocrystals play essential roles in tradeoff between modulus, strength, and toughness.…”

Synthesis of Bio‐Inspired Guanine Microplatelets: Morphological and Crystallographic Control

“…Biological composites often exhibit versatile mechanical, selfhealing, magnetic, optical or other properties in comparison to manmadem aterials with similar chemical compositions, thanks to their hierarchical structures with exquisitec ontrol from nano-to macroscopic scales. [1][2][3][4][5][6] In particular,b iological organisms develop as tunning array of optical systems for av ariety of different purposes,i ncluding vision, [7] coloration (both static [8] and dynamic [9][10] ), broad-band reflection, [11][12] etc. These opticals ystems often rely on precise constructions of nano/microscopics tructures, such as multilayer-based reflectors, 3D photonic crystals, etc.…”