The macroscopic properties of materials are largely determined by their microstructure, which often cannot be changed once made; and this limitation applies to most ‘hard’ materials. By contrast, soft biological materials such as proteins and tissues respond to external stimuli by changing the structure of constituent components and thus properties, which yield adaptive function often inaccessible by manmade materials. Underpinning this contrast is the basic component of biological materials – biomacromolecules with sequentially arranged monomers of prescribed physical and chemical properties. This points toward an opportunity for materials scientists: Can we design sequence-controlled polymers and exploit their self-assembly to create adaptive soft materials and use them to build devices with melded, adaptive function?

This research integrates four core aspects: (i) molecular design and synthesis, (ii) multi-scale assembly and mesoscopic structure, (iii) macroscopic nonlinear (mechanical, electric, magnetic, and optical) properties, and (iv) additive manufacturing. Integrating polymer chemistry, polymer physics, molecular theory, advanced characterization, and multi-scale modeling, we are establishing molecule-structure-property-function relations for new classes of adaptive soft materials. Using customized additive manufacturing plaftorms, we transform these materials to functional architectures for applications including soft electronics, soft robots, and catalysis.

Current research projects include:

• Bottlebrush polymers and networks
• Associative polymers
• Additive manufacturing of soft/inorganic matter