Invited Paper PS1-MoA8
Plasma-assisted Fabrication and Functionalization of Materials for Applications at the Nano-biointerface

Monday, October 21, 2019, 4:00 pm, Room B131

Surface tailored (nano)materials are of striking interest to better control protein/material and cell/material interactions at the sub-molecular level.

Current fabrication of nanomaterials is facing the following two challenges: high selectivity toward specific chemical compositions or morphologies and their scalable production. This usually requires new synthesis/functionalisation conditions beyond the conventional approaches.

Plasma chemistry presents an opportunity to explore these features and to potentially trigger new surface-driven biological effects. Indeed, the unique synergy of physical and chemical phenomena that occur in the low temperature plasmas has led to an ever-increasing effort to find solutions to currently problematic medical, agricultural, cosmetic and environmental problems by using multifaceted cold plasma environment.

In this paper, the latest progress in the plasma-assisted fabrication and/or functionalization of materials from nanoparticles to low-dimensional nanostructures, including graphene oxide, are briefly reviewed, with a special focus on discussing plasma properties responsible for the nanomaterial growth with high throughput, desired compositions and shapes, or narrow size distributions as well as for the surface functionalization with some control on the ageing processes.

Case studies on plasma-synthesized plasmonic nanogold and nanosilver with tunable optical and electrical properties and plasma surface-modified polymers and nanocarbons at the interface with peptides/proteins, extracellular matrix, supported lipid bilayers and cells are discussed. An outlook of challenges and opportunities for further advancement in this emerging field is given.