Adaptive functional polymers and nanocontainers
Introducing structure hierarchy to mechanoresponsive materials to access multifunctionality
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Module 1 (2014-2022): Mechanically responsive materials
Coupling between mechanical and chemical processes is widespread in living organisms. Examples include muscle action, chemotactic bacteria, or conformational changes in membrane proteins. Nature easily masters the design of such mechanochemical transduction processes and maintains the function at different length scales. These processes inspire the primary goal of Module 1, namely, to mimic such behavior with synthetic polymers. The main questions include designing mechanically responsive materials, including bulk polymers or capsules, and measuring the force response of single polymer molecules by means of atomic force microscopy (AFM). These efforts aim towards the development of novel materials with stimuli-responsive functionalities.
