Active optics with silk

Nanophotonics

article

Giulia Guidetti¹  Yu Wang¹  Fiorenzo G. Omenetto¹ 

[1] Department of Biomedical Engineering, Tufts University;Laboratory for Living Devices, Tufts University;Department of Physics, Tufts University;Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Tufts University

关键词: biomaterials;    optics;    reconfigurable;    silk;    transient;    tunable;   

DOI  :  10.1515/nanoph-2020-0358

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: De Gruyter

【 摘 要 】

Optical devices have been traditionally fabricated using materials whose chemical and physical properties are finely tuned to perform a specific, single, and often static function, whereby devices’ variability is achieved by design changes. Due to the integration of optical systems in multifunctional platforms, there is an increasing need for intrinsic dynamic behavior, such as devices built with materials whose optical response can be programmed to change by leveraging the material’s variability. Here, regenerated silk fibroin is presented as an enabler of devices with active optical response due to the protein’s intrinsic properties. Silk’s abilities to controllably change conformation, reversibly swell and shrink, and degrade in a programmable way affect the form and the response of the optical structure in which it is molded. Representative silk-based devices whose behavior depends on the silk variability are presented and discussed with a particular focus on structures that display reconfigurable, reversibly tunable and physically transient optical responses. Finally, new research directions are envisioned for silk-based optical materials and devices.

【 授权许可】

CC BY