LBNL Masthead A-Z Index Berkeley Lab masthead Phone Book Jobs Search The Molecular Foundry Home DOE - Office of Science

Molecular Foundry Seminar

"Actuated "Spiny" Surfaces à la Echinoderms: En Route for Adaptive Materials"

Professor Joanna Aizenberg, Departments of Materials Science and Chemistry & Chemical Biology,
Harvard University, Faculty of Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering,
Tuesday, October 19 at 1:30 pm, Bldg. 66 - Auditorium

View the Foundry Seminar Schedule

Abstract:

The ability of organisms to respond to various stimuli provides an inspiration for a modern engineering and science that seek to develop a new generation of materials with dynamic, adaptive properties. I will describe the synthesis, fabrication and characterization of new hybrid nano/micro-structures that mimic the echinoderm skin.  We demonstrate that these spiny surfaces can be reversibly actuated by a responsive polymer muscle and assembled into a variety of previously unseen structures with uniform, periodic or chiral nano/micro-patterns. The application of these hydrogel-actuated integrated responsive systems (HAIRS) in the context of new materials with reversible optical and wetting properties, as a multifunctional platform for controlling cell differentiation and function, and as an efficient particle-trapping and adhesive system will be discussed.1-5


1.      A. Sidorenko, T. Krupenkin, A. Taylor, P. Fratzl, J. Aizenberg, “Reversible Switching of Hydrogel-Actuated Nanostructures into Complex Micropatterns”, Science 2007, 315, 487.
2.      A. Sidorenko, T. Krupenkin, J. Aizenberg, “Controlled Switching of the Wetting Behavior of Biomimetic Surfaces with Hydrogel-Supported Nanostructures”, J. Mater. Chem. 2008, 18, 3841.
3.  B. Pokroy, A. K. Epstein, M. C. M. Gulda Persson, J. Aizenberg, “Fabrication of Bio-Inspired Actuated Nanostructures with Arbitrary Geometry and Stiffness”, Adv. Mater. 2009, 21, 463.
4.      B. Pokroy, S. H. Kang, L. Mahadevan, J. Aizenberg, “Self-Organization of a Mesoscale Bristle into Ordered, Hierarchical, Helical Assemblies”, Science, 2009, 323, 237.
5.      P. Kim, L. D. Zarzar, X. Zhao, A. Sidorenko, J. Aizenberg, “Microbristle in gels: Toward all-polymer reconfigurable hybrid surfaces”, Soft Matter 2010, 6, 750-755.