Modularization design philosophy for multifunctional materials: a case study of a Janus film affording concurrent electrically conductive anisotropic-magnetic-fluorescent multifunctionality

Abstract

Inspired by the unique structure of Rubik's Cube, which consists of miniature cubes, herein, a new concept, namely “modularization design”, of designing multifunctional materials as well as its implementation method are proposed. For illustrating this novel design philosophy, herein, a multifunctional 4-module electrically conductive anisotropic-magnetic-fluorescent Janus film (named as 4M-EMF Janus film) composed of a tightly combined fluorescence module (denoted as the F module), magnetism-fluorescence module (expressed as the M-F module), adjustable fluorescence module (defined as the AF module), and electricity-fluorescence module (marked as the E-F module) was fabricated. The morphologies, structures and properties of the color-tuned fluorescence, adjustable magnetism and variable anisotropic conduction of the different modules of the 4M-EMF Janus film were systematically studied. The results prove that almost no detrimental mutual influences exist among the different functional modules owing to the macroscopic partition of the 4M-EMF Janus film originating from the modularization design philosophy, which effectively avoids negative interactions among different functional modules and enhances the comprehensive performance of the 4M-EMF Janus film. Moreover, microcosmic partition philosophy was incorporated to design and fabricate the modules. For instance, Janus nanobelts with two microcosmic partitions were designed and used to fabricate the E-F module to ensure a high degree of conductive anisotropy and strong fluorescence. In addition, the 4M-EMF Janus film achieved synchronous conductive anisotropy, magnetism and tri-colored fluorescence at one layer and red fluorescence at the other layer. The novel modularization design philosophy provides a flexible design and fabrication strategy to obtain high-performance multifunctional materials. More importantly, the modular design philosophy and the new nanomaterials derived from this philosophy will have important applications in many fields in the future.