TY - JOUR
T1 - Stabilizing Metal Coating on Flexible Devices by Ultrathin Protein Nanofilms
AU - Zhang, Yingying
AU - Ren, Hao
AU - Linghu, Changhong
AU - Zhang, Jiqing
AU - Gao, Aiting
AU - Su, Hao
AU - Miao, Shuting
AU - Qin, Rongrong
AU - Hu, Bowen
AU - Chen, Xiaojie
AU - Deng, Miaoran
AU - Liu, Yongchun
AU - Yang, Peng
PY - 2024/12/27
Y1 - 2024/12/27
N2 - The significant modulus difference between a metal coating and a polymer substrate leads to interface mismatches, seriously affecting the stability of flexible devices. Therefore, enhancing the adhesion stability of a metal layer on an inert polymer substrate to prevent delamination becomes a key challenge. Herein, an ultrathin protein nanofilm (UPN), synthesized by disulfide-bond-reducing protein aggregation, is proposed as a strong adhesive layer to enhance adhesion between polymer substrate and metal coating. Unlike traditional biopolymer adhesives with micrometer-scale thicknesses, the UPN layer is minimized to nanometer/single-molecular scale. Such UPN thereby effectively enhances the interfacial adhesive strength and reduces the cohesion contribution in the entire adhesion system by directly connecting two interfaces with a nearly single-molecular thickness. Using UPN as the adhesive layer, a multifunctional metal coating could be reliably adhered on flexible polymer substrates by ion sputtering, delivering unprecedented adhesion stability even under repetitive mechanical deformation. Applications of this design include reversible transparency control, tension-responsive encryption, reusable optical sensing, and wearable capacitive touch sensors. This work highlights UPN's potential to create strong bonding strength between flexible polymers and metal coatings, offering a biocompatible solution with high surface activity and low cohesion, facilitating the development of hybrid devices with stable metal nano-coating. © 2024 Wiley-VCH GmbH.
AB - The significant modulus difference between a metal coating and a polymer substrate leads to interface mismatches, seriously affecting the stability of flexible devices. Therefore, enhancing the adhesion stability of a metal layer on an inert polymer substrate to prevent delamination becomes a key challenge. Herein, an ultrathin protein nanofilm (UPN), synthesized by disulfide-bond-reducing protein aggregation, is proposed as a strong adhesive layer to enhance adhesion between polymer substrate and metal coating. Unlike traditional biopolymer adhesives with micrometer-scale thicknesses, the UPN layer is minimized to nanometer/single-molecular scale. Such UPN thereby effectively enhances the interfacial adhesive strength and reduces the cohesion contribution in the entire adhesion system by directly connecting two interfaces with a nearly single-molecular thickness. Using UPN as the adhesive layer, a multifunctional metal coating could be reliably adhered on flexible polymer substrates by ion sputtering, delivering unprecedented adhesion stability even under repetitive mechanical deformation. Applications of this design include reversible transparency control, tension-responsive encryption, reusable optical sensing, and wearable capacitive touch sensors. This work highlights UPN's potential to create strong bonding strength between flexible polymers and metal coatings, offering a biocompatible solution with high surface activity and low cohesion, facilitating the development of hybrid devices with stable metal nano-coating. © 2024 Wiley-VCH GmbH.
KW - flexible devices
KW - interfacial adhesion
KW - protein aggregation
KW - ultrathin protein nanofilm
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85208936445
UR - https://www.scopus.com/record/pubmetrics.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85208936445&origin=recordpage
U2 - 10.1002/adma.202412378
DO - 10.1002/adma.202412378
M3 - RGC 21 - Publication in refereed journal
C2 - 39540338
SN - 0935-9648
VL - 36
JO - Advanced Materials
JF - Advanced Materials
IS - 52
M1 - 2412378
ER -