Biofunctional Silk Kirigami With Engineered Properties

The fabrication of multifunctional materials that interface with living environments is a problem of great interest. A variety of structural design concepts have been integrated with functional materials to form biodevices and surfaces for health monitoring. In particular, approaches based on kirigami-inspired cuts can engineer flexibility in materials through the creation of patterned defects. Here, the fabrication of a biodegradable and biofunctional “silk kirigami” material is demonstrated. Mechanically flexible, free-standing, optically transparent, large-area biomaterial sheets with precisely defined and computationally designed microscale cuts can be formed using a single-step photolithographic process. Using modeling techniques, it is shown how cuts can generate remarkable “self-shielding” leading to engineered elastic behavior and deformation. As composites with conducting polymers, flexible, intrinsically electroactive sheets can be formed. Importantly, the silk kirigami sheets are biocompatible, can serve as substrates for cell culture, and be proteolytically resorbed. The unique properties of silk kirigami suggest a host of applications as transient, “green”, functional biointerfaces, and flexible bioelectronics.