TY - JOUR
T1 - Soft hydrogel semiconductors with augmented biointeractive functions
AU - Dai, Yahao
AU - Wai, Shinya
AU - Li, Pengju
AU - Shan, Naisong
AU - Cao, Zhiqiang
AU - Li, Yang
AU - Wang, Yunfei
AU - Liu, Youdi
AU - Liu, Wei
AU - Tang, Kan
AU - Liu, Yuzi
AU - Hua, Muchuan
AU - Li, Songsong
AU - Li, Nan
AU - Chatterji, Shivani
AU - Fry, H. Christopher
AU - Lee, Sean
AU - Zhang, Cheng
AU - Weires, Max
AU - Sutyak, Sean
AU - Shi, Jiuyun
AU - Zhu, Chenhui
AU - Xu, Jie
AU - Gu, Xiaodan
AU - Tian, Bozhi
AU - Wang, Sihong
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the US National Institutes of Health Director’s New Innovator Award (1DP2EB034563) and the US Office of Naval Research (N00014-21-1-2266). This work was partially supported by the start-up fund from the University of Chicago. This research used beamline 7.3.3 of the Advanced Light Source, which is a US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facility under contract no. DE-AC02-05CH11231. Y.W. was supported in part by an ALS Doctoral Fellowship in Residence. Z.C., Y.W., and X.G. acknowledge financial aid from an NSF grant (DMR-2047689) that enabled the thin-film tensile testing of the samples. B.T. acknowledges grant support from the US Army Research Office (W911NF-24-1-0053). P.L. acknowledges the Grier Prize for Innovation Research in the Biophysical Sciences. Work performed at the Center for Nanoscale Materials, a US DOE Office of Science User Facility, was supported by the US DOE, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, under contract no. DE-AC02-06CH11357. S. Wang is a CZ Biohub Investigator.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science.
PY - 2024/10/25
Y1 - 2024/10/25
N2 - Hydrogels, known for their mechanical and chemical similarity to biological tissues, are widely used in biotechnologies, whereas semiconductors provide advanced electronic and optoelectronic functionalities such as signal amplification, sensing, and photomodulation. Combining semiconducting properties with hydrogel designs can enhance biointeractive functions and intimacy at biointerfaces, but this is challenging owing to the low hydrophilicity of polymer semiconductors. We developed a solvent affinity–induced assembly method that incorporates water-insoluble polymer semiconductors into double-network hydrogels. These semiconductors exhibited tissue-level moduli as soft as 81 kilopascals, stretchability of 150% strain, and charge-carrier mobility up to 1.4 square centimeters per volt per second. When they are interfaced with biological tissues, their tissue-level modulus enables alleviated immune reactions. The hydrogel’s high porosity enhances molecular interactions at semiconductor-biofluid interfaces, resulting in photomodulation with higher response and volumetric biosensing with higher sensitivity.
AB - Hydrogels, known for their mechanical and chemical similarity to biological tissues, are widely used in biotechnologies, whereas semiconductors provide advanced electronic and optoelectronic functionalities such as signal amplification, sensing, and photomodulation. Combining semiconducting properties with hydrogel designs can enhance biointeractive functions and intimacy at biointerfaces, but this is challenging owing to the low hydrophilicity of polymer semiconductors. We developed a solvent affinity–induced assembly method that incorporates water-insoluble polymer semiconductors into double-network hydrogels. These semiconductors exhibited tissue-level moduli as soft as 81 kilopascals, stretchability of 150% strain, and charge-carrier mobility up to 1.4 square centimeters per volt per second. When they are interfaced with biological tissues, their tissue-level modulus enables alleviated immune reactions. The hydrogel’s high porosity enhances molecular interactions at semiconductor-biofluid interfaces, resulting in photomodulation with higher response and volumetric biosensing with higher sensitivity.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85207327598&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1126/science.adp9314
DO - 10.1126/science.adp9314
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 39446940
AN - SCOPUS:85207327598
SN - 0036-8075
VL - 386
SP - 431
EP - 439
JO - Science
JF - Science
IS - 6720
ER -