Berkeley Researchers Develop Molecular Paper
Berkeley Lab researchers have developed the largest two-dimensional polymer crystal self-assembled in water to date.
"The biologically inspired sheet is made of polymers, or long molecules with repeating units, that mimic the precision and order seen in proteins and crystal structures," writes Wired's Janelle Weaver. "But these synthetic sheets are made of molecular building blocks that are more durable than their natural counterparts."
"This in turn is bound to make it suitable for a wide array of potential applications in the electronics industry and in biotechnology too," according to Softpedia. "The plywood-like structure is so neatly ordered that some have even compared its organization with that of proteins and crystal structures."
"Our findings bridge the gap between natural biopolymers and their synthetic counterparts, which is a fundamental problem in nanoscience," explains Ronald Zuckermann, Director of the Biological Nanostructures Facility at the Berkeley Lab's Molecular Foundry. "We can now translate fundamental sequence information from proteins to a non-natural polymer, which results in a robust synthetic nanomaterial with an atomically-defined structure."