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Bio-inspired responsive polymer pillar arrays

  • Polymers/Soft Matter Prospective Article
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Abstract

High-aspect-ratio (HAR) pillar arrays offer large surface area, well-defined surface topography, and large mechanical compliance. In this Prospective, we showcase micro- and nanopillar array systems that exploit the responsiveness and/or harness the mechanical instabilities for myriad surface-mediated applications, including tunable wetting, adhesion, optical properties, and actuation. In each application, we start with biological examples with HAR pillar structures, and discuss strategies to fabricate responsive HAR polymer pillar structures. We then discuss approaches to tune the surface topography, such as via bending, tilting, expansion or contraction, and collapsing of the pillars, and the resulting change of surface and optical properties, and their dynamic actuation. In each system, we discuss the controllability and recoverability of pillar deformation.

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Acknowledgments

The work shown here by the Yang laboratory was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER grant (no. DMR-0548070), GOALI grant (no. DMR-1105208), and EFRI-SEED grant (no. EFRI-1038215), and ACS/PRF grant (no. 50911-ND7).

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  1. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Pennsylvania, 3231 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 19104, USA

    Elaine Lee & Shu Yang

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  1. Elaine Lee
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Correspondence to Shu Yang.

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Lee, E., Yang, S. Bio-inspired responsive polymer pillar arrays. MRS Communications 5, 97–114 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1557/mrc.2015.18

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