Chicago Section

“Functional Bio-enabled Nanomaterials: from AdaptivePhotonic Materials to Actuating Flexible Magnets”

Abstract: Bio-enabled hybrid nanomaterials represent a novel class of functional materials, whichuses bio-derived materials, bioinspiration and biomimetic approaches to design hybrid materialsand structures with co-assembled biological and synthetic components to bring best of twoworlds: versatile diverse adaptive functions and mechanical strength, flexibility, and scalability [1].In this talk, we summarize our recent results on functional hybrid nanomaterials from chiralnematic polysaccharides for adaptive chiroptical materials, magnetic photonic materials andoptical computing. We discuss robust photonic nanomaterials from cellulose nanocrystals andnanofibers decorated with highly photoluminescent organic dyes, quantum dots and quantumnanowires for tailored emission of linear and circular polarized light [2]. Then, we present resultson magnetically steerable uniform photonic organization of cellulose nanocrystals decorated withsuperparamagnetic nanoparticles [3]. Assembly under weak magnetic field gradients enablestransformation from helicoidal cholesteric to uniaxial nematic phase with near-perfect orientationachieved across large areas, enhanced mechanical robustness, and fast actuation ability. Finally,we demonstrate biophotonic-encrypted field effect transistors with multi-valued logic elementsfor massive parallel computing and elevated encryption ability [4].

References: [1] D. Nepal, et al, Hierarchically Structured Bioinspired Nanocomposites, Nature Mat., 2022,https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-022-01384-1

[2] S. Kang, et al., Bio-organic chiral nematic materials with adaptive light emission and on-demand handedness, Adv. Mater., 2021,2103329

[3] X. Zhang et al, Uniformly aligned flexible magnetic films from bacterial nanocelluloses for fast actuating optical materials, NatureCom., 2022, 13, 5804;https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-33615-z

[4] M. J. Han, M. Kim, V. V. Tsukruk, Multi-Valued Logic Structures forOptical Computing with Photonically Enabled Chiral Bio-Organic Structures, ACS Nano, 2022, doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.2c04182

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