title: Polyelectrolyte multilayer-assisted fabrication of non-periodic silicon nanocolumn substrates for cellular interface applications.
abstract: Recent advances in nanostructure-based biotechnology have resulted in a growing demand for vertical nanostructure substrates with elaborate control over the nanoscale geometry and a high-throughput preparation. In this work, we report the fabrication of non-periodic vertical silicon nanocolumn substrates via polyelectrolyte multilayer-enabled randomized nanosphere lithography. Owing to layer-by-layer deposited polyelectrolyte adhesives, uniformly-separated polystyrene nanospheres were securely attached on large silicon substrates and utilized as masks for the subsequent metal-assisted silicon etching in solution. Consequently, non-periodic vertical silicon nanocolumn arrays were successfully fabricated on a wafer scale, while each nanocolumn geometric factor, such as the diameter, height, density, and spatial patterning, could be fully controlled in an independent manner. Finally, we demonstrate that our vertical silicon nanocolumn substrates support viable cell culture with minimal cell penetration and unhindered cell motility due to the blunt nanocolumn morphology. These results suggest that vertical silicon nanocolumn substrates may serve as a useful cellular interface platform for performing a statistically meaningful number of cellular experiments in the fields of biomolecular delivery, stem cell research, etc.
authors.affiliation: School of Materials Science and Engineering, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, 123 Cheomdan-gwagiro, Buk-gu, Gwangju 500-712, Republic of Korea. mhyoon@gist.ac.kr.
authors.forename: Seyeong
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Dongyoon
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Seong-Min
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Jeong-Ah
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Taesoo
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Dong-Yu
authors.initials: DY
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Myung-Han
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Yoon
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D018929:Cell Culture Techniques / Q000379:methods*; D051379:Mice; D041681:NIH 3T3 Cells; D054118:Nanospheres / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000648:ultrastructure; D012825:Silicon
chemical_list: D012825:Silicon