Frontiers of Materials Award Symposium: 2021 Functional Nanomaterials: Translating Innovation into Pioneering Technologies: Session IV
Program Organizers: Huanyu Cheng, Pennsylvania State University
Tuesday 2:00 PM
March 16, 2021
Room: RM 16
Location: TMS2021 Virtual
2:00 PM Invited
Intelligent Materials at the AI-robotics-medicine Nexus: Xuanhe Zhao1; 1Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Intelligent materials, composed of multiple voxels that can be individually designed and fabricated, have achieved critical properties and functions inaccessible to common materials in a digitalized and programmable manner. This talk will be focused on intelligent materials composed of functional voxels responsive to magnetic fields. I will first discuss the design and optimization of the magnetic intelligent materials with the genetic algorithm and generative adversarial network (GAN), their fabrication with multi-material 3D printing, and their control with reinforced learning. I will then discuss one example application of the magnetic intelligent material as a soft continuum robot capable of navigating inside the complex blood vessels inside the brain to remotely treat stroke and aneurysm – potentially saving millions of patients without timely access to medical centers. I will conclude the talk with a perspective on the development and applications of intelligent materials at the AI-robotics-medicine nexus.
2:40 PM Invited
Expansile Kirigami Wrapping Designs for Breast Reconstruction: Young-Joo Lee1; Hyesung Cho1; Jason Christopher Jolly1; Eric Jablonka1; Michael Tanis1; Randall Kamien1; Suhail Kanchwala1; Shu Yang1; 1University of Pennsylvania
In the US, about 1 in 8 women will develop invasive breast cancer over their lifetime. To complete a successful and aesthetically pleasing breast reconstruction, tissue reinforcing products, acellular dermal matrices (ADM) are widely utilized to keep breast implants or autologous tissue transfer secured against the chest wall in the desired location. However, the ADM sheet does not have the 3D shape, and it requires stitching of multiple ADMs to cover the entire implant. We have developed a kirigami strategy to cut ADM, expanding a regular sized ADM into a desired 3D shape that conformally wrap the implant regardless of its size and shape. Numerical calculation provides optimal cut design such that the kirigami ADM wrap can provide shape and support to the reconstructed breast in the desired regions, offering optimal aesthetic outcomes and patient-specific reconstruction, while reducing risks of malposition side effects and minimizing operative time and cost.
3:20 PM Invited
Liquid Metals and Hydrogels: Inherently Stetchable Materials for Wearables: Michael Dickey1; 1North Carolina Stste University
This talk will discuss two classes of soft materials that can be used or combined to make truly soft devices for wearables: liquid metals and hydrogels. Liquid metals are attractive because of their remarkable properties: metallic conductivity, melting points below room temperature, water-like viscosity, low-toxicity, and effectively zero vapor pressure (they do not evaporate). Hydrogels are attractive because they are inexpensive, soft, ionically conductive, and biocompatible. The talk will discuss our latest results to study, utilize, and combine these materials for energy harvesting, sweat harvesting from the skin, and body motion sensing. This work has implications for soft and stretchable electronics; that is, devices with desirable mechanical properties for human-machine interfacing, soft robotics, and wearable electronics.
4:00 PM Invited
Semiconductor Nanomaterials for Neural Interfaces: John Rogers1; 1Northwestern University
Advanced electronic/optoelectronic systems built using classes of nanomaterials that enable intimate integration with soft tissues of the brain, the spinal cord and the peripheral nerves will accelerate progress in neuroscience research; they will also serve as the foundations for new approaches in regenerative medicine and in the treatment of neurodegenerative disease. Specifically, capabilities for injecting miniaturized electronic elements, light sources, photodetectors, multiplexed sensors, programmable microfluidic networks and other components into precise locations of the deep brain or for softly laminating them onto the surfaces of peripheral nerves will open up unique and important opportunities in stimulating, inhibiting and monitoring neural circuit behaviors. This presentation describes concepts in materials science and assembly processes that underpin these types of technologies, including bioresorbable, or ‘transient’, devices designed to disappear into the body on timescales matched to natural processes. Examples include ‘cellular-scale’ optofluidic neural probes for optogenetics research, systems for control of bladder function by closed-loop neuromodulation and bioelectronics ‘medicines’ for accelerated regeneration of damaged peripheral nerves.
4:40 PM Invited
Skin-inspired Organic Electronics: Zhenan Bao1; 1Stanford University
Skin is the body’s largest organ, and is responsible for the transduction of a vast amount of information. This conformable, stretchable, self-healable and biodegradable material simultaneously collects signals from external stimuli that translate into information such as pressure, pain, and temperature. The development of electronic materials, inspired by the complexity of this organ is a tremendous, unrealized materials challenge. However, the advent of organic-based electronic materials may offer a potential solution to this longstanding problem. Over the past decade, we have developed materials design concepts to add skin-like functions to organic electronic materials without compromising their electronic properties. These new materials and new devices enabled arrange of new applications in medical devices, robotics and wearable electronics. In this talk, I will discuss several projects related to engineering conductive materials and developing fabrication methods to allow electronics with effective electrical interfaces with biological systems, through tuning their electrical as well as mechanical properties. The end result is a soft electrical interface that has both low interfacial impedance as well as match mechanical properties with biological tissue. Several new concepts, such as “morphing electronics” and “genetically targeted chemical assembly - GTCA” will be presented.