Harvard College

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Daeyeon Lee

David A Weitz

Angela M Belcher

Jin-Woong Kim

Yoon Sung Nam

Andrew Parsons Magyar

Adam R Abate

Christian Holtze

Thao Do

Methods and apparatuses for encapsulating inorganic micro- or nanostructures within polymeric microgels are described. In various embodiments, viruses are encapsulated with microgels during microgel formation. The viruses can provide a template for in situ synthesis of the inorganic structures within the microgel. The inorganic structures can be distributed substantially homogeneously throughout the microgel, or can be distributed non-uniformly within the microgel. The inventive microgel compositions can be used for a variety of applications including electronic devices, biotechnological devices, fuel cells, display devices and optical devices.

Virus/nanowire encapsulation within polymer microgels for 2D and 3D devices for energy and electronics

The present invention provides a method for coating metal oxide on a PDMS surface. The method includes preparing a mixture that contains a sol-gel precursor, reacting the mixture to form a preconverted sol-gel precursor, where the preconverted sol-gel precursor does not diffuse into PDMS and is not in the form of a gel, forming a reactive PDMS surface, applying the preconverted sol-gel precursor onto the reactive PDMS surface, binding the preconverted sol-gel precursor to the re-active PDMS surface, and converting the bound preconverted sol-gel precursor to a metal oxide to form a metal oxide coating on the PDMS surface. The present invention also provides a PDMS microfluidic device where one or more channels of the microfluidic device is provided with a metal oxide coating covalently bound only on the surface of the one or more channels.

Metal oxide coating on surfaces

Growing community of inventors

Somerville, MA, United States of America

Daeyeon Lee