Self-assembly Of Nanostructured Diatom Microshells Into Patterned Arrays Assisted By Polyelectrolyte Multilayer Deposition And Inkjet Printing

摘要

In nature, a few classes of organisms have the ability to fabricate inorganic materials into complex hierarchical patterns by bottom-up self-assembly processes. For example, diatoms are a prolific class of single-celled algae that possess microscopic, biogenic silica shells or "frustules" with intricate nanoscale features, including two-dimensional pore arrays. Recently, it has been shown that intact diatom frustules possess blue photoluminescence, act as 2D photonic crystals, and can be biologically functionalized with antibodies. These properties enable device applications such as optical platforms for gas sensors, electroluminescent thin films with novel emission patterns, and biosensing. Scalable processes for assembling these biologically fabricated microstructures into defined patterns are needed in order to take advantage of their nanoscale features and properties for future device applications in optoelectronics and bionanotechnology.