Mesoscopic reconstruction of protein-based flexible materials and their optoelectronic devices

Protein materials in nature are abundant and have various chemical components, controllable properties, and excellent biocompatibility and degradability, which are useful characteristics for the development of flexible optoelectronic devices. However, due to the poor chemical stability and uncontrollable mechanical flexibility of proteins, the application of traditional processing technologies to the protein materials is difficult, which seriously restricts their use in the development of flexible electronic devices. This review firstly introduces the mesoscopic reconstruction and processing technologies of natural protein materials by taking silk protein and keratin as examples, and shows the relationship between the multi-level network structures of these materials and their physical properties. Then, the application of these materials in flexible sensors, light emitting devices, transistors, and memory devices is introduced. Finally, the challenges and opportunities of protein-based flexible materials in the development of optoelectronic devices are discussed.