Andrea Cerea

Cell electroporation and intracellular delivery by mean of 3D vertical hollow nanoelectrodes

In this work we present a device able to electroporate and deliver molecules inside adherent cells using hollow nanoelectrodes that act also as nanofluidic channels. Our fabrication approach allows to greatly reduce the amplitude of the applied electrical pulse train and to selectively deliver molecules only to the targeted cells.

Conical nanoantenna arrays for terahertz light

We report here on the design, fabrication and characterization of out-of-plane arrays of conical nanoantennas resonating in the terahertz frequency range.

SERS spectroscopy, electrical recording and intracellular injection in neuronal networks with 3D plasmonic nanoantennas

We developed a platform based on 3D plasmonic nanoantennas able to perform different functions with applications in the biological research area. In particular it will be shown how the peculiar geometry of the system plays a fundamental role, leading to a tight interaction with the cellular membrane. Such configuration allows on one side the investigation of extracellular features through enhanced vibrational spectroscopy and electrical recording, and on the other the possibility of intracellular injection by optoporation. In this regard it will be demonstrated how the characteristics of the laser pulse used for exciting the antenna establish the kind of involved phenomena. A dependence of these properties on the metal coating the antenna will be also shown.

Far field beaming of Orbital Angular Momentum light states

We propose a conceptually novel scheme for generation and beaming of optical angular momentum using plasmonic multilayer nanostructure We calculate the optical modes generated by the structure in near and far-field. Our proposed structure architecture, consisting of a plasmonic vortex lens is shown to convert impinging light to an almost pure and well defined orbital angular momentum state capable of propagating to the far-field.