A Chitin Nanofiber Ink for Airbrushing, Replica Molding, and Microcontact Printing of Self assembled Macro-, Micro-, and Nanostructures

摘要

The ability to precisely manipulate, localize, and assemble biological and bioinspired molecules into organized structures has contributed to great advances in bionanot-echnology. These advances include bioelectronics, biophotonics, tissue engineering, and regenerative medi-cine. To produce well organized structures, self-assembly of nanoscale molecular blocks is particularly attractive when complemented with gentle top-down fabrication methods. In this fashion, deterministic macro- and microstructure control can be obtained without disrupting the delicate nanoscale molecular self-assembly process. Here, we introduce a novel fabrication strategy based on a "chitin nanofiber ink" that self-assembles into 3 nm chitin nanofibers upon drying (Figure la).