Related papers: A bioinspired optically transparent tough glass co…
Materials that are strong, ultra-light weight and tough are in demand for a range of applications, requiring architectures and components carefully designed from the micrometer down to nanometer scales. Nacre-a structure found in many…
The development of damage-resistant structural materials that can withstand harsh environments is a major issue in materials science and engineering. Bioinspired brick-and-mortar designs have recently demonstrated a range of interesting…
The escalating plastic waste crisis demands global action, yet mechanical recycling - currently the most prevalent strategy - remains severely underutilized. Only a small fraction of the total plastic waste is recycled in this manner,…
Nature provides many paradigms for the design and fabrication of artificial composite materials. Inspired by the relationship between the well-ordered architecture and biopolymers found in natural nacre, we present a facile strategy to…
Natural ceramic composites present complex microstructures that lead to tortuous crack paths and confer them high toughness. Current microreinforced composites do not yet reach the same level of complexity in their microstructures,…
Additive manufacturing of shape memory polymers has gained tremendous interest in recent years due to their versatile potential applications in various industries, such as biomedicine and aerospace. However, the polymers' mechanical…
Transparent glass-ceramics are nanocomposite materials which offer specific characteristics of capital importance in photonics. This kind of two-phase materials is constituted by nanocrystals embedded in a glass matrix and the respective…
High strength and high toughness are usually mutually exclusive in engineering materials. Improving the toughness of strong but brittle materials like ceramics thus relies on the introduction of a metallic or polymeric ductile phase to…
Due to their exceptional mechanical and chemical properties and their natural abundance, cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) are promising building blocks of sustainable polymer composites. However, the rapid gelation of CNC dispersions has…
Understanding, predicting and eventually improving the resistance to fracture of silicate materials is of primary importance to design new glasses that would be tougher, while retaining their transparency. However, the atomic mechanism of…
Structural characterization of biologically formed materials is essential for understanding biological phenomena and their environment, and generating new bio-inspired engineering concepts. For example, nacre -- formed by mollusks in the…
Modern optical systems are subject to very restrictive performance, size and cost requirements. Especially in portable systems size often is the most important factor, which necessitates elaborate designs to achieve the desired…
We report on a single-step, biomimetic approach for the realization of omnidirectional transparent antireflective glass. In particular, it is shown that circularly polarized ultrashort laser pulses produce self-organized nanopillar…
Many promising approaches for designing interactions of synthetic materials with light involve solid optical monocrystals and nanofabricated photonic crystal structures with spatially periodic variations of refractive index. Although their…
In many biological materials such as nacre and bone, the material structure consists of hard grains and soft interfaces, with the interfaces playing a significant role in the material's mechanical behavior. This type of structures has been…
Recently, it has been found experimentally that hydrated nacre exhibits a nonlinear mechanical response. While mechanical nonlinearity has been shown to be important in other biological structures, such as spider webs, the implications of…
The recently proposed optical elements containing semitransparent wavelike films embedded into the transparent material are investigated. Such optical elements do not distort a wave transmitted through them. Novel optical elements can be…
Silicon nanostructuring imparts unique material properties including antireflectivity, antifogging, anti-icing, self-cleaning, and/or antimicrobial activity. To tune these properties however, a good control over features size and shape is…
Extrusion 3D-printing of biopolymers and natural fiber-based biocomposites allows for the fabrication of complex structures, ranging from gels for healthcare applications to eco-friendly structural materials. However, traditional polymer…
The combination of soft nanoscale organic components with inorganic nanograins hierarchically designed by natural organisms results in highly ductile structural materials that can withstand mechanical impact and exhibit high resilience on…