Functional fibrillar interfaces: Biological hair as inspiration across scales

• Guillermo J. Amador,
• Brett Klaassen van Oorschot,
• Caiying Liao,
• Jianing Wu and
• Da Wei

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2024, 15, 664–677, doi:10.3762/bjnano.15.55

• bodies of mammals, over trichomes of plants, to the mastigonemes on the flagella of single-celled organisms. While these long and slender protuberances are passive, they are multifunctional and help to mediate interactions with the environment. They provide thermal insulation, sensory information

• length scales. Keywords: adhesion; fibers; fluid–structure interactions; mastigonemes; mechanosensing; setae; wettability; Introduction Given the bottom-up approach that biology uses to create materials, fibrous structures formed by molecular chains are found everywhere. For example, internally in the

• is exemplified by hair's resistance to heat transfer in humans [4][24], and the role of hair in sensing mates by male mosquitoes [25]. Additionally, plants may exhibit hair-like fibrillar structures, such as the nanometer-thick mastigonemes on the flagella of microalgae [26] and the high-aspect-ratio