title: Bioinspired structural materials.
abstract: Natural structural materials are built at ambient temperature from a fairly limited selection of components. They usually comprise hard and soft phases arranged in complex hierarchical architectures, with characteristic dimensions spanning from the nanoscale to the macroscale. The resulting materials are lightweight and often display unique combinations of strength and toughness, but have proven difficult to mimic synthetically. Here, we review the common design motifs of a range of natural structural materials, and discuss the difficulties associated with the design and fabrication of synthetic structures that mimic the structural and mechanical characteristics of their natural counterparts.
authors.affiliation: Thayer School of Engineering, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire 03755, USA.
authors.forename: Ulrike G K
authors.initials: UG
authors.lastname: Wegst
authors.affiliation: Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.
authors.forename: Hao
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Bai
authors.affiliation: Centre for Advanced Structural Ceramics, Department of Materials, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, UK.
authors.forename: Eduardo
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Saiz
authors.affiliation: Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.
authors.forename: Antoni P
authors.initials: AP
authors.lastname: Tomsia
authors.affiliation: 1] Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, USA [2] Department of Materials Science &Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.
authors.forename: Robert O
authors.initials: RO
authors.lastname: Ritchie
mesh_terms: D040761:Biomimetic Materials