Laboratory of Bio-Inspired Materials and Interface Sciences, Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China.
School of Future Technology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
Mater Horiz. 2024 Nov 11;11(22):5768-5776. doi: 10.1039/d4mh00755g.
A successful flexible wearable not only has to fulfill its function, but also has to ensure long-term wettability and comfort during wearing. In biological systems, tears spread rapidly across the cornea to ensure clear imaging while slowly evaporating to maintain moisture in the eyes. This dynamic behavior of 'rapid spread, slow evaporation' ensures durative humidity and comfort, which can provide design guidelines for continuous wearable devices. However, realizing this dynamic process remains a challenge. Herein, inspired by a healthy ocular surface, we biomimetically construct a hybrid surface featuring mucin-like hydrophilic layer@hydrogel nanowire arrays (HL@HNWs). A droplet (2 μL) rapidly spreads into a thin film, stabilizing for ∼10 minutes, whereas the contrast sample rapidly ruptures and dewets within 1 minute. We demonstrate that enhancing the proportion of hydrated water (HW), which includes intermediate water (IW) and bound water (BW), and introducing the capillary resistance of the nanowire arrays could synergistically stabilize the water film and improve the wettability. Hydrogel-based nanowire array contact lenses can ensure wettability during continuous wear, and a stable water film can substantially improve comfort and provide superior visual quality.
一个成功的柔性可穿戴设备不仅要实现其功能，还要确保在佩戴过程中的长期润湿性和舒适性。在生物系统中，眼泪迅速扩散到角膜上，以确保清晰的成像，同时缓慢蒸发，以保持眼睛的水分。这种“快速扩散、缓慢蒸发”的动态行为确保了持续的湿度和舒适性，可为连续可穿戴设备提供设计指南。然而，实现这一动态过程仍然是一个挑战。在此，受健康眼表面的启发，我们仿生构建了一种混合表面，其特征是具有粘蛋白样亲水层@水凝胶纳米线阵列（HL@HNWs）。液滴（2 μL）迅速扩展成薄膜，稳定约 10 分钟，而对比样品在 1 分钟内迅速破裂和去湿。我们证明，增强包括中间水（IW）和结合水（BW）在内的水合水（HW）的比例，并引入纳米线阵列的毛细阻力可以协同稳定水膜并提高润湿性。基于水凝胶的纳米线阵列隐形眼镜可以确保连续佩戴时的润湿性，稳定的水膜可以显著提高舒适度并提供卓越的视觉质量。
