Building Interfaces: Mechanisms, fabrication, and applications at the biotic/abiotic interface for silk fibroin based bioelectronic and biooptical devices.
Brenckle, Mark.
2015
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Abstract: Recent
efforts in bioelectronics and biooptics have led to a shift in the materials and form
fac- tors used to make medical devices, including high performance, implantable, and
wearable sensors. In this context, biopolymer-based devices must be processed to
interface the soft, curvilinear bio- logical world with the rigid, inorganic world of
traditional electronics and optics. This ... read moreposes new material-specific fabrication
challenges in designing such devices, which in turn requires further un- derstanding of
the fundamental physical behaviors of the materials in question. As a biopolymer, silk
fibroin protein has remarkable promise in this space, due to its bioresorbability,
mechanical strength, optical clarity, ability to be reshaped on the micro- and
nano-scale, and ability to stabilize labile compounds. Application of this material to
devices at the biotic/abiotic interface will require the development of fabrication
techniques for nano-patterning, lithography, multilayer adhesion, and transfer printing
in silk materials. In this work, we address this need through fundamental study of the
thermal and diffusional properties of silk protein as it relates to these fabrication
strategies. We then leverage these properties to fabricate devices well suited to the
biotic/abiotic interface in three areas: shelf-ready sensing, implantable transient
electronics, and wearable biosensing. These example devices will illustrate the
advantages of silk in this class of bioelectronic and biooptical de- vices, from
fundamentals through application, and contribute to a silk platform for the develop-
ment of future devices that combine biology with high
technology.
Thesis (Ph.D.)--Tufts University, 2015.
Submitted to the Dept. of Biomedical Engineering.
Advisor: Fiorenzo Omenetto.
Committee: David Kaplan, Robert White, and John Rogers.
Keywords: Biomedical engineering, and Materials Science.read less - ID:
- cf95jp80q
- Component ID:
- tufts:21411
- To Cite:
- TARC Citation Guide EndNote
