The silk of the venomous brown recluse spider could be the key to creating new super-sticky films and wafer-thin electronics and sensors for medical implants that are highly compatible with the human body. So says a team of scientists from Oxford University, UK, and The College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA. They studied the spider (Loxosceles recluse), which produces super-thin ribbons of silk instead of the round fibers usually spun by spiders.
By reeling and examining the silk ribbons’ unique properties they discovered their outstanding strength and toughness compared to standard spider silk. In addition, the ribbons’ flat structure made it possible to study the material’s molecular structure in great detail and investigate what gives it its strength.
The team found that the extreme thinness of the ribbons, which are up to 10 nanometers wide, combined with stiffness and the ability to adapt to the shapes of surfaces is what gives the silk its unprecedented adhesive properties. The team also found that the surface of the silk ribbons is covered with tiny, dot-like ‘bumps’ that likely enhance adhesion ability.
They said that they were able to modify an atomic force microscope to measure the rigidity of a single recluse fiber and discovered that the ribbon is only a few molecules thick. This discovery is expected to have implications for the development of new super-sticky cling films and also for the manufacture of thin-film electronic devices, which might even be implanted as sensors in the human body where silks are highly valued for their outstanding combination of great mechanical strength and excellent biological compatibility.
