10-04 :: April 2010

nanotimes

Research

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Ron Zuckermann (left) and Ki Tae Nam with Berkeley Lab’s Molecular Foundry, have developed a ‘mole- cular paper’ material whose properties can be precisely tailored to control the flow of molecules, or serve as a platform for chemical and biological detection © Roy Kaltschmidt, Berkeley Lab Public Affairs / LBL

“The design of nature-inspired, functional polymers that can be assembled into membranes of large lateral dimensions marks a new chapter for mate- rials synthesis with direct impact on Berkeley Lab’s strategically relevant initiatives such as the Helios project or Carbon Cycle 2.0,” said National Center for Electron Microscopy’s Kisielowski.

“This new material is a remarkable example of mole- cular biomimicry on many levels, and will no doubt lead to many applications in device fabrication, na- noscale synthesis and imaging,” Zuckermann added.

Ki Tae Nam, Sarah A. Shelby, Philip H. Choi, Amanda B. Marciel, Ritchie Chen, Li Tan, Tammy K. Chu, Ryan A. Mesch, Byoung-Chul Lee, Michael D. Connolly, Chri- stian Kisielowski & Ronald N. Zuckermann: Free-floating ultrathin two-dimensional crystals from sequence-specific peptoid polymers, In: Nature Materials AOP, April 11, 2010, DOI:10.1038/nmat2742: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nmat2742

http://foundry.lbl.gov/