Plasma polymer gradients : developing a tool for the screening of biological responses to surfacesTools Zelzer, Mischa (2009) Plasma polymer gradients : developing a tool for the screening of biological responses to surfaces. PhD thesis, University of Nottingham.
AbstractControlling the interaction of cells with a material surface is of major interest in the field of biomedical material science. Plasma polymers are an attractive way to modify the surface chemistry of a material because this technique is versatile and can be applied to a wide range of different surfaces. The aim of the present work is to prepare a new chemical gradient tool using plasma polymerisation and assess its ability to provoke position dependent cell-surface interactions. A novel diffusion based approach is used to develop gradients from hydrophobic hexane (ppHex) to more hydrophilic allylamine (ppAAm) plasma polymers. The surface of the gradient and that of uniform control samples is characterised using WCA, XPS, ToF-SIMS and AFM. This data shows that the most distinct gradient was found in the wettability profile which can be controlled by changing the size of the opening through which diffusion of depositing species from the plasma occurs.
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