Fabrication of novel tribomaterials and their structure/property studies

For developing new soft & wet materials with excellent functions based on the concentrated polymer brush(CPB), we have successfully synthesized thick layers of CPB as well as a variety of building blocks with CPB, controlled their hierarchical structures, and finally demonstrated their excellent lubricating properties. It should be especially noted that we have succeeded in incorporating the CPB effect onto a sheet of cellulosic nanofibers and in achieving novel lubricating as well as mechanical properties, suggesting new material design bio-inspired by the articular cartilage.