Physics & Nanotechnology

Bioinspired Functional Materials: From Nature’s Nanoarchitectures to Nanofabricated Designs

To be held at the Spring Meeting of the German Physical Society (DPG), in Dresden from 19-24 March 2017.

Biological materials often achieve functionality through complex spatial structures on the scale of nanometers and micrometers. Examples range from the brilliant optical reflections of butterfly wings and insects to the non-wetting properties of plant leaves. This symposium broadly addresses questions related to both function and formation of biological materials, as well as strategies for the self-assembly or the top-down fabrication of bio-inspired or bio-related structures and designs.

This symposium is organised by the topical groups Chemical Physics and Polymer Physics (CPP), Biological Physics (BP), Metals and Materials (MM), dielectric solids (DF), Dynamics and Statistical Physics (DY) und MI. The invited session will take place on Tuesday 21 March in the morning.

Abstracts are invited for an associated session for contributed presentations and posters (which can be found under the banner of the CPP section of the DPG on the abstract submission page: http://dresden17.dpg-tagungen.de/programm/abstract.html)

Invited speakers of the symposium are:

Prof Peter Vukusic, Exeter University, England : Biophotonics and insect nanostructures
Dr Silvia Vignolini, Cambridge University, England : Biological and synthetic chiral structures in cellulose
Prof Vladimir Tsukruk, Georgia Tech, Atlanta, USA : Biomimetic applications of nanomaterials and their self-assembly
Prof Thomas Speck, Freiburg, Germany : Biomechanics and interface properties of plant tissue
Prof Martin Wegener, Karlsruhe, Germany : Nanofabrication of functional materials
The symposium is organised by Gerd Schröder-Turk (Murdoch University Perth), Karin Jacobs (University Saarbrücken) und Robert Magerle (University Chemnitz).