Chapter 16 Nano-engineered Thin Films for Cell and Tissue-Contacting Applications

摘要

Thin films of bioactive, biocompatible and biotherapeutic materials are crucial to many applications in bioengineering and medicine, but the susceptibility of these materials to thermal damage forbids the application of many conventional thin-film deposition technologies. Here we describe a novel approach to depositing thin nanostructured thin films using resonant mid-infrared laser ablation. This vapor-phase technique - which can be employed either in vacuum or in air or another ambient gas environment - circumvents many difficulties attendant to conventional liquid-phase deposition technologies, such as spin- and dip-coating. It makes possible, for example, multilayer deposition with sharp interfaces, and patterning by means of shadow-masking. Examples of the technique on biocompatible and -degradable polymers, nucleic acids, fluoropolymers and function-alized nanoparticles are described. In conclusion, current developments in laser technology are discussed that can enable this thin-film deposition technique, now based on tunable, picosecond mid-infrared free-electron lasers, to be realized using mid-infrared solid-state, table-top laser sources with similar characteristics.