Bio-organisms often exhibit an exquisite array of hierarchical organization with multiscale structures as exemplified by the iridescence in blue Morpho rhetenor butterflies, the waveguiding properties in diatom exoskeletons, the self-cleaning ability of lotus leaves, and the dry adhesion of Gecko foot hairs. These examples provide inspiration for the development of new functional hybrid materials. To mimic hierarchical organization in Nature, one of the emerging strategies is the convergence of top-down microfabrication and bottom-up nanoassembly.

Research Areas:

• Fabrication of 3D Photonic Structures by Holographic Lithography
• Tunable Wetting and Adehsion on Reversibly Tunable Wrinkled Surfaces
• Directed Wetting, Adhesion and Assembly on Topographically Structured Polymer Surfaces
• Nanoscale Assembly of Complex Structures via Harnessing of an Elastic Instability in Polymer Gels