Programmable Materials

Abstract

The ability to synthesize materials by design presents one of the greatest scientific challenges. Programmable materials can be designed to be highly dynamic either in form or function. Advances made toward the fabrication of programmable materials can lead to new, unexpected discoveries and novel functionalities in emerging fields, such as enhanced plasmonics, selective catalysis, efficient energy harvesting, precision medicine, and autonomous actuators. Vast research interest have been raised in material design for programmable materials to pursue these cutting-edge features, such as programmable molecules and nanomaterials. These can be self-assembled and processing with dynamic forms under various environments and emerging applications such as flexible electronics, showing high adaptability coupled with multidimensional transformations. The thriving research into programmable materials has revolutionized the materials science and engineering community from the perspective of synthetic biology, chemistry, and computational designs, etc. Programmable materials exhibiting unique adaptability upon various applications have generated new opportunities related to processing technology, especially regarding uniformity and scalability. Coupled with recent breakthroughs in programmable materials and related manufacturing, this creates potential impact in research and industrial applications. Moreover, the bioinspired dynamic transformation of programmable materials opens more opportunities for autonomous and soft robotics with enhanced intelligence upon their application. The prospects are significant for future applications of smart robotics and autonomous cyber–machine interfaces. The flourishing programmable materials may facilitate a vision for responsive materials on multiple scales showing a thriving future with progressed synthetic biology and chemistry, adaptable printing processes, autonomous robotics, and intelligent cyber–machine interfaces. To feature recent materials-oriented advances in this rapidly growing field, this special issue of Advanced Materials on the topic of “Programmable Materials” is presented, gathering contributions from leading experts to showcase four thriving pillars of programmable materials: Programmable materials are produced from small molecules with programmable self-assembly of nanomaterials with controllable organization and morphology. These responsive materials are appealing and create stringent demands on their assembly and resulting structures. For example, nanoparticles can be programmed precisely by assembling “atoms” functionalized with a shell of oligonucleotides into crystalline superlattices with tuneable compositions, symmetries, and lattice parameters, through DNA base pairing. Jin and co-workers (article number 2006591) summarize atomically precise Au nanoclusters (NCs) with programmable kernel structures and their electronic/optical absorption properties by controlling the size/shape and surface ligand of Au NCs. Sub-wavelength-scale metal nanoparticles (NPs) show localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) when interacting with electromagnetic waves, which is highly dependent on the size, composition, and assembly structure of these plasmonic NPs. Park, Nam, and co-workers (article number 2002700) outline recent bottom-up chemical approaches toward the precise assembly of uni- and multi-component plasmonic NPs. Including those with static assemblies through fixed structural parameters, as well as those with dynamic, reconfigurable spatial arrangement upon diverse stimuli. Meanwhile, strongly enhanced optical responses in the nanogap have also led to extensive investigations in plasmonic gap nanostructures (PGNs) and their potential sensing applications. Given the challenges in reproducible and controlled fabrication of highly uniform plasmonic nanogap structures in the nanometer and atomic-level range, Nam and co-workers (article number 2006966) elaborate recent advances in the