Swirly Fluorescent Particles in a Regenerative Polymer Matrix

Abstract

Self-healing materials rely on reactive chemical species to repair damage in synthetic materials. Many times, this requires mixing of two or more liquid components and one of the challenges of my research is to engineer our microvascular systems to accomplish mixing autonomously. One of our healing chemistries gels very rapidly (~30s) and this allows me to load it with fluorescent particles (~300 nm diameter) which freeze in place during gelation. I can complete a post-mortem evaluation of the system with a confocal fluorescent scanning microscope to track the position and spacing of particle domains. Each sample results in a unique pattern that can be statistically analyzed to determine the overall level of mixedness. The chaotic flow of reactive components within a damage zone results in the swirling and layered patterns represented in this image.