(327f) Cellulose/Metal Nanoclusters-Derived Hydrogel with Visible Light Sensitivity for Artificial Retina

Retina is the most complicated and indispensable part in eyes for human, animals, and robots to gain outside signal forming imagines of the world we live in. However, how to prepare a fully functional retina is an incredibly challenging task so far for researchers working in clinical medicine, materials science, and hi-tech areas. Herein, we introduced a strategy to prepare visible-light sensitive hydrogel by introducing the atomic precise metal nanoclusters (MNCs) stabilized cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) into polyacrylamide, which could be applied to design artificial eyes. To our surprise, the formation of this hydrogel could be initiated by MNCs under the radiation of visible light quickly, for which MNC supported by CNC, we think, could efficiently absorb visible light and generate free radicals to initial the polymerization of polyacrylamide. Additionally, its tensile strength has been boosted significantly after the introducing of MNC/CNC, for which the enriched hydrogen bonds and van der Waals forces caused by the introduction of MNC and CNC should be responsible. Moreover, our hydrogel shows good conductivity and high sensitivity to visible light. And its conductivity is closely related to the light applied, which make it possible to work as artificial retina for color distinguish. In all, this work posted a new strategy to prepare light sensitive hydrogel to simulate retina, which shows great promising application material science, clinic medicine and even high-tech fields.