MSE 298 Seminar: Bio-like Soft Materials with Life-like Intelligence

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Abstract: From the cellular level up to the body system level, living organisms present elegant designs to realize desirable structures, properties and functions. For example, tendons and muscles are tough but soft, owing to highly complex hierarchical structures rarely found in synthetic materials. Our neuromuscular system enables our motion sensing and response with built-in feedback control, presenting superior intelligence also lacking in manmade systems. Gels, as a class of liquid-laden crosslinked polymer networks, not only have tissue-like water-rich porous networks and can also change their volume and physical properties in response to environmental cues. At the UCLA He lab, we exploit fundamental material processing-structure-property-function studies of hydrogels and their derivatives to create (i) bio-like structures and properties and (ii) life-like intelligence in functional soft materials for applications in robotics, biomedicine, energy and the environment. This talk will present how these could be realized by mastering polymer-water interactions. Specifically, using classic chemical physical principles to modulate macromolecule assembly up to complex polymer networks, the fundamental limits in mechanical, diffusion and electrical properties could be broken to design extreme properties. The enabled soft materials featuring high mechanical toughness, ion/electron conduction, fast stimuli response and synthetic intelligence make possible the next-generation energy-self-sufficient robots, personalized medical implants, as well as futuristic smart wearable electronics and battery-powered flight.

Bio: Ximin He is an associate professor of materials science and engineering at UCLA and on the faculty of the California Nanosystems Institute (CNSI). He was a postdoctoral research fellow in the School of Engineering and Applied Science and the Wyss Institute of Bioinspired Engineering at Harvard University. She received her doctorate in chemistry at Melville Laboratory for Polymer Synthesis from University of Cambridge. He’s research focuses on bioinspired soft materials, structural polymers and their physical, mechanical, electrical and photothermal properties with broad applications in biomedicine, energy, environment and robotics. She is the recipient of the NSF CAREER award, AFOSR Young Investigator award, CIFAR Global Scholar, SES Young Investigator Medal, International Society of Bionic Engineering Outstanding Youth Award, Advanced Materials Rising Star Award, 3M Non-tenured Faculty Award, Hellman Fellows Award, and UCLA Faculty Career Development Award. Her research on bioinspired tough hydrogels, phototropic, phototaxic, homeostatic and anti-icing materials have garnered a number of regional and international awards and was featured in more than 100 international news outlets.