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Updated: Mar 25, 2026
Selective Area Modification of Silicon Surface Wettability by Pulsed UV Laser Irradiation in Liquid Environment
Published on: November 9, 2015
Selective cell adhesion on femtosecond laser-microstructured polydimethylsiloxane
A M Alshehri1, S Hadjiantoniou, R J Hickey
1Department of Physics, University of Ottawa, 150 Louis Pasteur, Ottawa, Ontario K1N 6N5, Canada. Department of Physics, King Khalid University(KKU), PO Box 9004, Abha, Saudi Arabia.
Abstract:
We show that femtosecond laser irradiation of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) enables selective and patterned cell growth by altering the wetting properties of the surface associated with chemical and/or topographical changes. In the low pulse energy regime, the surface becomes less hydrophobic and exhibits a low water contact angle compared to the pristine material. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) also reveals an increased oxygen content in the irradiated regions, to which the C2C12 cells and rabbit anti-mouse protein were found to attach preferentially. In the high pulse energy regime, the laser-modified regions exhibit superhydrophobicity and were found to inhibit cell adhesion, whereas cells were found to attach to the surrounding regions due to the presence of nanoscale debris generated by the ablation process.
