Conductive Au nanowires regulated by silk fibroin nanofibers

Abstract

Conductive Au--biopolymer composites have promising applications in tissue engineering such as nerve tissue regeneration. In this study, silk fibroin nanofibers were formed in aqueous solution by regulating silk self-assembly process and then used as template for Au nanowire fabrication. We performed the synthesis of Au seeds by repeating the seeding cycles for several times in order to increase the density of Au seeds on the nanofibers. After electroless plating, densely decorated Au seeds grew into irregularly shaped particles following silk nanofiber to fill the gaps between particles and finally form uniform continuous nanowires. The conductive property of the Au--silk fibroin nanowires was studied with current--voltage (I--V) measurement. A typical ohmic behavior was observed, which highlighted their potential applications in nerve tissue regeneration.

Keywords

silk / Au nanowire / electrical conductivity / biological device

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Acknowledgements

We thank the National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program; Grant No. 2013CB934400) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC; Grant No. 21174097) for support for this work. We also thank the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions (PAPD), the Excellent Youth Foundation of Jiangsu Province (BK2012009), and the NIH (EB002520).

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

2014 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg