Tuning Properties of Iridescent Biofilms for Material Applications

Nature employs hierarchical assembly as a successful strategy for enhancing the physical properties of its materials. Scientists study these natural materials, including morpho butterfly wings and mollusk nacreous shells, in an effort to replicate their properties in functional materials. Though mechanistic insights from these studies have led to significant progress, translating nature’s design principles into scalable platforms for manufacturing hierarchical materials remains a bottleneck. We previously demonstrated the potential of iridescent <i>Cellulophaga lytica</i> biofilms to circumvent this issue with facile growth and scalability. In particular, their ability to self-assemble into hierarchically ordered communities in ambient conditions make them attractive candidates for templating ordered materials at industrial scales. Bacteria evolved strategies for precisely controlling morphology and dimensions on scales that are difficult to achieve in industrial manufacturing. In the current study, we demonstrate how biofilm functionality can be tuned by altering the morphology, dimensions and chemistry of its constituent bacteria. This study further strengthens the case for using these biofilms as platforms for sustainably manufacturing photonic materials and ordered templates.