Phys.org September 18, 2024
A team of researchers in the US (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, University of Washington, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, North Carolina State University) developed highly ordered two-dimensional silk fibroin (SF) films grown epitaxially on van der Waals (vdW) substrates. They showed that the films consisted of lamellae of SF molecules that exhibited the same secondary structure as the nanocrystallites of native silk. Increasing the SF concentration resulted in multilayers that grew either by direct assembly of SF molecules into the lamellae or, at high concentrations, along a two-step pathway beginning with a disordered monolayer that crystallizes. They found that these films substantially alter the surface potential providing a platform for silk-based electronics on vdW solids… read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLEÂ
The structure of 2D SF lamellae grown epitaxially on HOPG. Credit: Science Advances, 18 Sep 2024, Vol 10, Issue 38