Reconfigurable functional materials
Abstract
Novel material design to afford functional materials with exceptional mechanical and electronic properties, while having high functional intelligence, have long served as the foundation to develop new capabilities for DoD applications. The introduction of dynamic bonds in self-healing materials also offers the potential to introduce reconfigurability into the material at both the macroscopic and molecular level. The former relies on controlling the formation of chemical bonds between interfaces to enable construction of larger objects. This principle has previously been demonstrated by my group to reconfigure 3D structures into different shapes by simple mechanical cutting and reconnecting into desirable arrangements. At the molecular level, the dynamic nature of the bonds which enables them to break and reform at accessible timescales, offers the potential to design materials with complex and reconfigurable hierarchical structures. Molecularly and macroscopically self-repairable and reconfigurable materials and electronics are crucial for DoD missions as they promise light-weight and wearable solutions for communication, displays, sensing, monitoring, predicting soldier fatigue level, and enabling human-machine interface for robotics. Despite significant progresses in the development of self-healable materials, self-healing and reconfigurability have only been investigated for single layer materials. However, in practice, multi-layered structures are involved, in which perfect alignment of each layer, especially thin film layers, is challenging and time consuming. Furthermore, self-repairing is generally only observed when cut pieces were placed near and well aligned with each other to recover a strong repaired interface. However, in practice, when multi-layered structures are involved, perfect alignment of each layer, especially thin film layers, is challenging and time consuming. In this project, structure-function relationships in the design of molecularly intelligent self-repairable materials will be carried out. This understanding will be subsequently used to design and prepare 3D structures with reconfigurable properties and orthogonal self-healing and recognition capabilities. Realizing self-recognition together with reconfiguration by self-healing chemistry represents a new paradigm for intelligent reconfigurable materials. The incorporation of nanocomposite electronic materials provides relevance to future applications, a new opportunity to investigate functional self-healing of nanocomposites and a means to characterize the rate of self-repairing process. Here, polymeric and composite materials will be used as key components as they provide excellent mechanical and electronic properties and are the core materials for many important technologies, ranging from electronics, batteries, photodetectors to solar cells.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Jun 25, 2021
- Source ID
- W911NF2110092
Entities
People
- Zhenan Bao
Organizations
- Army Contracting Command
- Stanford University
- United States Army