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Modulation of Multiscale 3D Lattices through Conformational Control: Painting Silk Inverse Opals with Water and Light
Author(s) -
Wang Yu,
Aurelio Daniele,
Li Wenyi,
Tseng Peter,
Zheng Zhaozhu,
Li Meng,
Kaplan David L.,
Liscidini Marco,
Omenetto Fiorenzo G.
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
advanced materials
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 10.707
H-Index - 527
eISSN - 1521-4095
pISSN - 0935-9648
DOI - 10.1002/adma.201702769
Subject(s) - silk , microscale chemistry , materials science , structural coloration , nanotechnology , nanoscopic scale , inverse , fibroin , colloidal crystal , photonics , photonic crystal , colloid , optoelectronics , chemical engineering , mathematics , geometry , mathematics education , engineering , composite material
Structural proteins from naturally occurring materials are an inspiring template for material design and synthesis at multiple scales. The ability to control the assembly and conformation of such materials offers the opportunity to define fabrication approaches that recapitulate the dimensional hierarchy and structure–function relationships found in nature. A simple and versatile directed assembly method of silk fibroin, which allows the design of structures across multiple dimensional scales by generating and tuning structural color in large‐scale, macro defect‐free colloidally assembled 3D nanostructures in the form of silk inverse opals (SIOs) is reported. This approach effectively combines bottom‐up and top‐down techniques to obtain control on the nanoscale (through silk conformational changes), microscale (through patterning), and macroscale (through colloidal assembly), ultimately resulting in a controllable photonic lattice with predefined spectral behavior, with a resulting palette spanning almost the entire visible range. As a demonstration of the approach, examples of “multispectral” SIOs, paired with theoretical calculations and analysis of their response as a function of changes of lattice constants and refractive index contrast are illustrated.