Transparent, Nanostructured Silk Fibroin Hydrogels with Tunable Mechanical Properties

Silk fibroin from the Bombyx mori caterpillar has been processed into many material forms, with potential applications in areas ranging from optoelectronics to tissue engineering. As a hydrogel, silk fibroin has been engineered as a substrate for the regeneration of soft tissues where hydration and mechanical compatibility are necessary. Current fabrication of silk fibroin hydrogels produces microstructured materials that lack transparency and limits the ability to fully exploit the hydrogel form. Transparency is the main characteristic of some human tissues (e.g., cornea) where silk fibroin in the film format has shown potential as scaffolding material, however, lacking the necessary hydration and successful attachment of cells without biochemical functionalization. Additionally, detection using light is an important method to translate information for instruction, sensing, and visualization of biological entities and light sensitive molecules. Here, we introduce a method for the fabrication of transpare...