Electrochemically controlled stiffness of multilayers for manipulation of cell adhesion

Stimuli-responsive thin films attract considerable attention in different fields. Herein, an electrochemical redox multilayers with tunable stiffness is constructed through the layer-by-layer self-assembly method. The redox ferrocene modified poly(ethylenimine) play an essential role to induce multilayers' swelling/shrinking under an electrochemical stimulus, resulting reversible change of elastic modulus of the multilayers. The adhesion of fibroblast cells can be thus controlled from well spreading to round shape. Such soft multilayers with electrochemically controlled stiffness could have potentials for cell-based applications.