Université de Fribourg

Development of a stimuli-responsive polymer nanocomposite toward biologically optimized, MEMS-based neural probes

Hess, Andreas E. ; Capadona, Jeffrey R. ; Shanmuganathan, Kadhiravan ; Hsu, L. ; Rowan, Suart J. ; Weder, Christoph ; Tyler, D. J. ; Zorman, C. A.

In: Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering, 2011, vol. 21, no. 5, p. 054009

This paper reports the development of micromachining processes and mechanical evaluation of a stimuli-responsive, mechanically dynamic polymer nanocomposite for biomedical microsystems. This nanocomposite consists of a cellulose nanofiber network encased in a polyvinyl acetate matrix. Micromachined tensile testing structures fabricated from the nanocomposite displayed a reversible and switchable...

Université de Fribourg

Natural biopolymers: novel templates for the synthesis of nanostructures

Padalkar, Sonal ; Capadona, Jephrey R. ; Rowan, Suart J. ; Weder, Christoph ; Won, Yu-Ho ; Stanciu, Lia A. ; Moon, Robert J.

In: Langmuir, 2010, vol. 26, no. 11, p. 8497–8502

Biological systems such as proteins, viruses, and DNA have been most often reported to be used as templates for the synthesis of functional nanomaterials, but the properties of widely available biopolymers, such as cellulose, have been much less exploited for this purpose. Here, we report for the first time that cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) have the capacity to assist in the synthesis of metallic...