A defining feature of biological materials is the hierarchical organization of structure and composition.  This design paradigm avoids vexing tradeoffs between competing properties by independently optimizing each property at separate levels of the hierarchy.  Herein we describe a facile method that faithfully reproduces this hierarchical organization in synthetic polymers.  It consists of a photocurable monomer and water. To this quasi-two-component system we add surfactants that sculpt the interface into the desired shape.  The resulting structures are then solidi?ed by crosslinking with UV light.  Drawing from the rich phase behavior of oil/water/surfactant systems, we demonstrate complex biomimetic morphologies over many length scales ranging from several mm down to 100 nm.  Quantitative image analysis reveals fractal morphologies with at least four distinct levels of hierarchy, which depended most strongly on surfactant tail length and oil viscosity.   The observed morphologies resemble neural networks, biofilms, honeycombs, keratin flakes, vascular structures, and spongy bone.

Surfactant sculpting of photocurable monomers into hierarchically organized biomimetic materials

243rd National Meeting (2012)

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