Bioinspired materials: from low to high dimensional structure

The surprising properties of biomaterials are the results of billions of years of evolution. Generally, biomaterials are assembled under mild conditions with very limited supply of constituents available for living organism, and their amazing properties largely result from the sophisticated hierarchical structures. Following the biomimetic principles to prepare manmade materials has drawn great research interests in materials science and engineering. In this review, we summarize the recent progress in fabricating bioinspired materials with the emphasis on mimicking the structure from one to three dimensions. Selected examples are described with a focus on the relationship between the structural characters and the corresponding functions. For one-dimensional materials, spider fibers, polar bear hair, multichannel plant roots and so on have been involved. Natural structure color and color shifting surfaces, and the antifouling, antireflective coatings of biomaterials are chosen as the typical examples of the two-dimensional biomimicking. The outstanding protection performance, and the stimuli responsive and self-healing functions of biomaterials based on the sophisticated hierarchical bulk structures are the emphases of the three-dimensional mimicking. Finally, a summary and outlook are given.