Smart Functional Nanoenergetic Materials

Many biological and physical objects derive their unique properties through an integrated multilength scale organization of their constituent nano and microscale structures. Such multiscaled structures are being exploited to engineer devices such as adhesives mimicking spatulae of a gecko, porous silicon drug delivery systems, to adaptive porous materials that mimick the multifunctionality of bone. A common feature in all these structures is that nanoscale units are all integrated into micron to macro scale structures and are accessible as individual modules for rapid response. Such design principles are crucial to the goals of our proposed work.