It's Not a Bug, It's a Feature: Functional Materials in Insects

Abstract

Over the course of their wildly successful proliferation across the earth, the insects as a taxon have evolved enviable adaptations to their diverse habitats, which include adhesives, locomotor systems, hydrophobic surfaces, and sensors and actuators that transduce mechanical, acoustic, optical, thermal, and chemical signals. Insect‐inspired designs currently appear in a range of contexts, including antireflective coatings, optical displays, and computing algorithms. However, as over one million distinct and highly specialized species of insects have colonized nearly all habitable regions on the planet, they still provide a largely untapped pool of unique problem‐solving strategies. With the intent of providing materials scientists and engineers with a muse for the next generation of bioinspired materials, here, a selection of some of the most spectacular adaptations that insects have evolved is assembled and organized by function. The insects presented display dazzling optical properties as a result of natural photonic crystals, precise hierarchical patterns that span length scales from nanometers to millimeters, and formidable defense mechanisms that deploy an arsenal of chemical weaponry. Successful mimicry of these adaptations may facilitate technological solutions to as wide a range of problems as they solve in the insects that originated them.

Surface coatings for solid-state nanopores

“…Coatings from fluid layers of lipids are attractive because they solve several of the most common problems in the context of nanopore recordings of proteins and other macromolecules. 107,114,295 Inspired by the lipid-coated nanopores present in the antennae of silk moths 296,297 (Fig. 12A), our group demonstrated, for instance, that lipid coatings efficiently prevent or minimize non-specific adsorption of proteins to the pore wall, eliminating clogging.…”

Bioinspired Adhesive Architectures: From Skin Patch to Integrated Bioelectronics

“…Figure a presents representative examples of natural adhesion with miniature architectures, such as dry/wet adhesion by the multiscale architectures of gecko lizards, beetles, endoparasites, octopi, and slugs . The feet of gecko lizards have widely been studied for their hierarchically structured hairs which enable robust, reversible and directional adhesion on dry and rough surfaces (maximum ≈10 N cm −2 ) .…”

“…This geometry allows directional appliance of van der Waals forces against engaged surfaces for stable attachment. The attachment strategies and fixation systems of beetles have also been investigated . Concave, mushroom‐shaped architectures on the forelegs of beetles ensure stable adherences onto rough, waxy surfaces or locomotion via capillary adhesion .…”

Recent Progress of Biomimetic Antifouling Surfaces in Marine

“…Unlike bees, which can use the grooming structures on their limbs to clear out the attached pollens or parasites on their wings, most cicadas as well as other “large‐winged” insects have extremities that are too short to clean the wings. [ 11,72 ] As seen in Figure , cicadae, planthopper, and dragonflies have developed their own antibacterial strategies with periodic nanopillars on the wings. [ 16,73–75 ] Ivanova et al proved that the bactericidal surface activity was not determined by the chemical properties of the nanopillar, and proposed a physicomechanical mechanism that the high‐aspect‐ratio nanopillars ruptured and consequently killed the bacterial cells upon adhesion.…”