International. Collaboration between materials scientists, biologists and chemists could advance the development of self-assembling nanomaterials, called nanoarchitectures, says a review in the journal Science and Technology of Advanced Materials.
While cyber technologies currently capture the public's imagination, investment in this type of collaborative materials research is crucial to meeting society's needs for energy storage, chemical sensing, and a wide range of biological applications.
Nanoarchitectonics allows the organization of groups of atoms or molecules into a predetermined structure. They can be used to create small electrical circuits, manipulate chemicals, and create various building blocks for nanoscale technologies. Nanoarchitectonics materials that self-assemble into the desired arrangement are necessary to optimize and advance these technologies.
Katsuhiko Ariga and colleagues at Japan's National Institute of Materials Science examined recent progress in nanoarchitectural materials. They believe that predicting the future of these materials requires an examination of biological systems, such as cell and protein surfaces, and macromolecular interfaces.
Self-assembled structures are common in biology, for example, in lipid layers or cytoskeleton components. Therefore, understanding how to control the evolution and behavior of biological structures could help with nanoarchitectonics. While there are advances in the development of some biological interface materials, it is not yet possible to create highly sophisticated self-assembled systems. Collaborations between materials scientists, biologists, and chemists are needed to replicate the characteristics of highly evolved biological systems into nanomaterials.
"The development of functional materials using self-assembling nanoarchitectures is analogous to the evolution of living things from component molecules," the reviewers write. "However, while living systems took billions of years to evolve, nanoarchitectonics could be used to achieve many of its anticipated goals in the coming decades."
Source: www.newsmaker.com.au
