Silk and Paper: Progress and Prospects in Green Photonics and Electronics

Abstract

side effects such as air pollution, climate change, declines in natural resources, and technological inequality. The new responsibility of scientists and engineers is to develop a new sustainable technology that is sustainable and that does not further deplete the planet's natural resources. Specifically, silicon-based electronics and optoelectronic devices have short lifespans. For example, the average lifespans for mobile phones and laptops are less than four years on average, [1] and some sensing devices have even shorter lifespans, generating waste after a short time period. Therefore, environmental issues, such as the depletion of scarce resources and production of toxic byproducts, became an area of increased concern. Technological advances in photonics and electronics, in particular, are now facing the issue of depletion of oil, the foremost source of organic materials. The generation of chemical and inorganic wastes during the process of photonic and electronic device production is also a pressing problem. In addition, costly devices may increase the inequality gap between developed and developing countries, which is a pressing problem, particularly in the area of medical applications. Therefore, it is an essential task for researchers to investigate potential material candidates that are readily degradable without any harmful byproducts, and that are also abundant in nature, thus reducing their cost. Many materials of biological origin have been investigated with the goal of achieving sustainable technology so far. In this review, we summarize recent technological achievements based on the most widely investigated materials: silk and paper. Silk, which was initially deployed mainly for the clothing industry, is a natural eco-friendly material with unique properties. Due to its exceptional characteristics of being fully biodegradable and eliciting no immune response, silk has now become one of the most promising materials for biomedical applications such as biomedical implantable devices. Together with excellent optical transparency in the visible range of light, the exceptional biocompatibility of silk has inspired many outstanding developments of optical devices for biomedical sensing applications. Silk has also attracted attention for its use in electronic devices. It has been shown that silk is particularly beneficial for organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs) applications as it can improve the crystal quality of organic semiconductors. There has also been much interesting research done on silk-based transient electronic devices and carbonized silk-based electrical sensors. [2] Meanwhile, paper, one of the oldest and most familiar bio-based materials in human history, has also shown its advantages of outstanding optical and mechanical properties with the promise Photonic and electronic devices currently face challenges in terms of improved efficiency of energy harvesting and light emission, renewable energy and materials, and the development of eco-friendly materials. Owing to the emergence of worldwid...

Light Amplification Materials Based on Biopolymers Doped with Dye Molecules—Structural Insights from 15N and 13C Solid-State Dynamic Nuclear Polarization

“…The spectrum of sample 1a was recorded with 1536 scans, and the spectrum of sample 3a was recorded with 20 480 scans. For both samples, tppm decoupling 45 Solid-state DNP NMR spectra of samples 4a and 5a were recorded in Wissembourg (France) on a Bruker Avance NEO spectrometer with an Ascend 400 DNP magnet, corresponding to frequencies of 400.22 MHz for 1 H, 100.64 MHz for 13 C, and 40.55 MHz for 15 N. This spectrometer is equipped with a 3.2 mm low-temperature H/X/Y triple-resonance probe and a 4.8 T Bruker gyrotron system operating at second harmonics that generates microwaves at a frequency of 263 GHz.…”

“…In the past decades, paper substrates as well as chitosan and their derivatives have become the basis for a large variety of biocompatible functional materials with potential applications in different fields such as in food industry, drug delivery systems, or medical diagnostics. − More specific applications range from supporting materials for catalysts , and stimuli-responsive or sensoric molecules , over electronic and optical devices , to materials that have been recently used in amplified light emission experiments. , To make paper substrates or chitosan available, they have to be prepared from natural, renewable resources. For paper materials, typically cellulose fibers from plants are the basis for manufacturing .…”

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13 C and 15 N solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) combined with dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP) is used to investigate the structure of dye-doped biopolymer-based materials that can be used in amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) experiments. By comparing calligraphic paper prepared from cellulose and scaffolds prepared from chitosan as substrates, differences in the interactions of the carrier material with the dye molecule Calcofluor White are obtained.

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Protein and Polysaccharide-Based Electroactive and Conductive Materials for Biomedical Applications

“…Porous synthetic polymer material has gained considerable attention as an optically active biosensor but is limited as far as freshly etched porous polymer matrix is known to generate free radicals and be toxic to living cells. Silk protein and paper (cellulose)-based materials have been shown to overcome these limitations and create renewable and environmentally friendly electronic and photonics devices for biomedical applications [ 113 ]. Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) has been utilized to investigate the molecular interactions attributed to Alzheimer’s disease because of their ability to detect real time, label free, and highly specific direct detections amongst antibody–antigen, DNA–DNA, DNA–protein, protein–protein, receptor–ligand, and peptide– and protein–membrane interactions [ 114 ].…”

Electrical conduction and noise spectroscopy of sodium-alginate gold-covered ultrathin films for flexible green electronics

“…Currently, the use of biodegradable materials represents an opportunity in several elds, where they can be used as substrates, inter-or active-layers and electrodes. To date, the most studied and promising biodegradable materials are cellulose derivatives 5,6 , chitin/chitosan [7][8][9] , and silk broin [10][11][12] .…”