Fabrication of Ultrafine Soft-Matter Arrays by Selective Contact Thermochemical Reaction

Patterning of functional soft matters at different length scales is important for diverse research fields including cell biology, tissue engineering and medicinal science and the development of optics and electronics. Here we have further improved a simple but very efficient method, selective contact thermochemical reaction (SCTR), for patterning soft matters over large area with a sub-100 nm resolution. By selecting contact between different precursors through a topographically patterned PDMS stamp and subsequently any heating way for thermalchemical reaction, thermal-related soft matters can be patterned to form controllable micro or nano structures, even three-dimensional structures. The fine tunability and controllability of as-prepared micro and nano structures demonstrate this versatile approach a far wide range of uses than the merely academic.

Towards a biocompatible artificial lung: Covalent functionalization of poly(4-methylpent-1-ene) (TPX) with cRGD pentapeptide

Covalent multistep coating of poly(methylpentene), the membrane material in lung ventilators, by using a copper-free "click" approach with a modified cyclic RGD peptide, leads to a highly biocompatible poly(methylpentene) surface. The resulting modified membrane preserves the required excellent gas-flow properties while being densely seeded with lung endothelial cells.

Surface patterning by microcontact chemistry

In this Feature Article we describe recent progress in covalent surface patterning by microcontact chemistry. Microcontact chemistry is a variation of microcontact printing based on the transfer of reactive "ink" molecules from a microstructured, elastomeric stamp onto surfaces modified with complementary reactive groups, leading to a chemical reaction in the area of contact. In comparison with other lithographic methods, microcontact chemistry has a number of advantageous properties including very short patterning times, low consumption of ink molecules, high resolution and large area patterning. During the past 5 years we and many others have investigated a set of different reactions that allow the modification of flat and also spherical surfaces in an effective way. Especially click-type reactions were found to be versatile for substrate patterning by microcontact chemistry and were applied for chemical modification of reactive self-assembled monolayers and polymer surfaces. Microcontact chemistry has already found broad application for the production of functional surfaces and was also used for the preparation of DNA, RNA, and carbohydrate microarrays, for the immobilization of proteins and cells and for the development of sensors.