Nanoarchitectonics for Hybrid and Related Materials for Bio‐Oriented Applications

TLDR

Nanotechnology seeks atom‑scale precision, yet current methods are often simple, whereas biological systems achieve such precision through integrative molecular organization, inspiring the nanoarchitectonics concept that unifies nanoscience with supramolecular chemistry, self‑assembly, and related fields to create functional materials. The article introduces nanoarchitectonics as a bio‑inspired framework for designing nanoscale functional materials and presents recent advances in hybrid architectures derived from biological, geological, and nanotechnological sources. Nanoarchitectonics orchestrates the harmonized assembly of nanoscale components into higher‑order functional materials, exemplified by hybrid architectures from DNA, clay, fullerenes, and other nanoarchitectures. The feature article demonstrates the successful application of nanoarchitectonics across diverse material types, highlighting its versatility in creating hybrid functional materials.

Abstract

Abstract Atom/molecular‐level controls in nanotechnology are important for the precise placement of components in device applications. Despite many advances, nanotechnology still uses simple systems to make precise atom/molecule‐scale changes. This is in contrast with the many phenomena observed in biological systems, where there appears to be a well‐designed integrative approach involving molecular units to achieve atomic‐ and molecular‐scale changes. Inspired by nature, we introduced a novel concept—nanoarchitectonics—to develop nanoscale functional materials for bio‐oriented applications. Nanoarchitectonics is a unified concept combining nanotechnology and methodologies in related research fields, such as supramolecular chemistry, self‐assembly, and self‐organization, to satisfy the major features of nanosciences for the creation of functional materials or even devices and machines. This concept guides the harmonized assembly of nanoscale objects into higher order functional materials. In this Feature Article, recent research activities are introduced regarding the development of advanced functional materials of hybrid and related architectures on the basis of nanoarchitectonics from diverse contexts of organic and inorganic materials: i) from biology (DNA‐based hybrid); ii) from geology (clay‐based hybrid); iii) from 0D nanotechnology (fullerene‐based hybrid); and iv) from other nanoarchitectonics. Therefore, this Feature Article showcases some examples of the nanoarchitectonic concepts at work in diverse material types.