Vito Pagliarulo

Reversible Holographic Patterns on Azopolymers for Guiding Cell Adhesion and Orientation

Topography of material surfaces is known to influence cell behavior at different levels: from adhesion up to differentiation. Different micro- and nanopatterning techniques have been employed to create patterned surfaces to investigate various aspects of cell behavior, most notably cellular mechanotransduction. Nevertheless, conventional techniques, once implemented on a specific substrate, fail in allowing dynamic changes of the topographic features. Here we investigated the response of NIH-3T3 cells to reversible topographic signals encoded on light-responsive azopolymer films. Switchable patterns were fabricated by means of a well-established holographic setup. Surface relief gratings were realized with Lloyds mirror system and erased with circularly polarized or incoherent light. Cell cytoskeleton organization and focal adhesion assembly proved to be very sensitive to the underlying topographic signal. Thereafter, pattern reversibility was tested in air and wet environment by using temperature or light as a trigger. Additionally, pattern modification was dynamically performed on substrates with living cells. This study paves the way toward an in situ and real-time investigation of the material-cytoskeleton crosstalk caused by the intrinsic properties of azopolymers.

Impact damage investigation on composite laminates: comparison among different NDT methods and numerical simulation

The aim of this paper is to investigate the ability of different NDT techniques to detect and evaluate barely visible and non-visible impact damage on composite laminates. Firstly, a conventional ultrasound technique was adopted to investigate the delamination in carbon fibre laminates after low velocity impact s. Then the results were compared with a thermographic and holographic analysis, as well as a theoretical simulation of the expected delamination. The results were compared and discussed. Overall a good agreement was found between the data obtained by the different techniques. Furthermore, the true values of the damage parameters were confirmed by DT performed on the samples.

Electrohydrodynamic Assembly of Multiscale PDMS Microlens Arrays

In this paper, we introduce an easy multiscale approach for the fabrication of polymer microlens arrays through a self-assembling process driven by the electrohydrodynamic (EHD) pressure. This method represents a simple alternative to the conventional soft lithography techniques. A thin layer of liquid polymer is deposited on a microengineered ferroelectric crystal and can be self-assembled and cross-linked in a single-step process as a consequence of the pyroelectric effect activated by simply heating the substrate. Although the EHD instability induced by the pyroelectric effect was discovered in principle few years ago, here we demonstrate a systematic investigation for fabrication of microlens arrays in a multiscale range (i.e., between 25 to 200 μm diameter) with high degree of uniformity. By controlling the polymer instability driven by EHD, we report on two different microoptical shapes can be obtained spontaneously, i.e., spherical or toroidal. Here, we show how the geometrical properties and the focal length of the lens array are modulated by controlling two appropriate parameters. Such microlenses can be useful also as polymer patterned arrayed microstructures for optical data interconnections, OLEDs efficient light extraction, concentrating light in energy solar cells, imaging and 3-D display solutions, and other photonics applications.

Endowing a plain fluidic chip with micro-optics: a holographic microscope slide

Lab-on-a-Chip (LoC) devices are extremely promising in that they enable diagnostic functions at the point-of-care. Within this scope, an important goal is to design imaging schemes that can be used out of the laboratory. In this paper, we introduce and test a pocket holographic slide that allows digital holography microscopy to be performed without an interferometer setup. Instead, a commercial off-the-shelf plastic chip is engineered and functionalized with this aim. The microfluidic chip is endowed with micro-optics, that is, a diffraction grating and polymeric lenses, to build an interferometer directly on the chip, avoiding the need for a reference arm and external bulky optical components. Thanks to the single-beam scheme, the system is completely integrated and robust against vibrations, sharing the useful features of any common path interferometer. Hence, it becomes possible to bring holographic functionalities out of the lab, moving complexity from the external optical apparatus to the chip itself. Label-free imaging and quantitative phase contrast mapping of live samples are demonstrated, along with flexible refocusing capabilities. Thus, a liquid volume can be analyzed in one single shot with no need for mechanical scanning systems.

Spontaneous Assembly of Carbon-Based Chains in Polymer Matrixes through Surface Charge Templates

Stable chains of carbon-based nanoparticles were formed directly in polymer matrixes through an electrode-free approach. Spontaneous surface charges were generated pyroelectrically onto functionalized ferroelectric crystals, enabling the formation of electric field gradients that triggered the dipole-dipole interactions responsible for the alignment of the particles, while embedded in the polymer solution. The phenomenon is similar to the dielectrophoretic alignment of carbon nanotubes reported in the literature. However, here the electric fields are generated spontaneously by a simple heat treatment that, simultaneously, aligns the particles and provides the energy necessary for curing the host polymer. The result is a polymer sheet reinforced with well-aligned chains of carbon-based particles, avoiding the invasive implementation of appropriate electrodes and circuits. Because polymers with anisotropic features are of great interest for enhancing the thermal and/or the electrical conductivity, the electrode-free nature of this technique would improve the scaling down and the versatility of those interconnections that find applications in many fields, such as electronics, sensors, and biomedicine. Theoretical simulations of the interactions between the particles and the charge templates were implemented and appear in good agreement with the experimental results. The chain formation was characterized by controlling different parameters, including surface charge configuration, particle concentration, and polymer viscosity, thus demonstrating the reliability of the technique. Moreover, micro-Raman spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy were used for a thorough inspection of the assembled chains.

Numerical tools for the characterization of microelectromechanical systems by digital holographic microscopy

Abstract. Digital holography (DH) in microscopy became an important interferometric tool in optical metrology when camera sensors reached a higher pixel number with smaller size and high-speed computers became able to process the acquired images. This allowed the investigation of engineered surfaces on microscale, such as microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). In DH, numerical tools perform the reconstruction of the wave field. This offers the possibility of retrieving not only the intensity of the acquired wavefield, but also the phase distribution. This review describes the principles of DH and shows the most important numerical tools discovered and applied to date in the field of MEMS. Both the static and the dynamic regimes can be analyzed by means of DH. Whereas the first one is mostly related to the characterization after the fabrication process, the second one is a useful tool to characterize the actuation of the MEMS.

Fabrication of polymer lenses and microlens array for lab-on-a-chip devices

Abstract. Microlenses and microlens arrays are assuming an increasingly important role in optical devices and communication systems. In response to their extended use in different fields of technology, a great emphasis is being placed on research into simple manufacturing approaches for these micro-optical components as well as on the characterization of their performance. This paper provides an overview of the recent emerging technologies for the fabrication of polymer microlenses by electrical, mechanical, chemical, and pyro-electrical methods. Attention is mainly focused on polymer molding and self-assembling for microlens arrays, while ink-jet printing is proposed for on-demand printing of lenses with high resolution. Among all the emerging techniques proposed, the pyro-electrodynamic approach has recently achieved great interest as an easy multiscale approach for the fabrication of polymer microlens arrays through a flexible process driven by electrohydrodynamic pressure. As each processing method has distinct advantages and limitations, the most significant characteristic parameters and the measurements of these parameters are discussed for each method.

Light-responsive polymer brushes: active topographic cues for cell culture applications

In the call for novel stimuli-responsive biomaterials, azobenzene-containing polymer brushes entail a remarkable potential. In fact, their ability to be patterned at the micro- and nanoscale using interference lithography (IL) might be exploited for the realisation of cell-instructive materials (CIMs). In this work, Disperse Red 1 (DR1)-based photoresponsive polymer brushes were synthesised using a controlled radical polymerisation technique. A sinusoidal pattern was inscribed on the azopolymer brush samples using Lloyds IL configuration. Interestingly, we found that seeded human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) oriented in the pattern direction. Furthermore, using a non-cytotoxic ultrasonication treatment, pattern erasure was achieved. Hence, we envisage the possibility of using these surfaces as reconfigurable cell-instructive biomaterials for tissue engineering applications.

Twofold Self-Assembling of Nanocrystals Into Nanocomposite Polymer

In this paper, we introduce a single-step self-assembling process aimed at forming two-dimensional (2-D) array microstructures made from a nanocomposite polymer layer in which are dispersed CdSe-CdS nanocrystals. The novelty of the process reported here is that it operates simultaneously as a two-fold process where the liquid polymer matrix is self-shaped by electrohydrodynamic pressure as a 2-D array of microstructures, while at the same time, the nanocrystals are self-assembled by dielectrophoretic forces. The proposed approach could inspire future smart fabrication techniques for producing self-assembled lensed nanocomposite layers. In principle, the method is scalable down to diameter lens up to few micrometers.

On the Complex and Reversible Pathways of CdSe Quantum Dots Driven by Pyroelectric-Dielectrophoresis

Electrophoresis (EP) and dielectrophoresis (DEP) are the two well-established methodologies to manipulate nanoparticles (NPs). Recently, DEP by a virtual electrode platform was demonstrated on ferroelectric substrates, where the driving force is due to the strong electric field generated by the pyroelectric effect, thus opening new scenarios for manipulating the matter. Such an innovative approach named pyroelectric-DEP has several advantages over traditional EP and DEP. However, a detailed study on this novel approach is required for understanding the complex pathways traced by NPs under the action of the pyroelectric-driven forces and thus for explaining the final patterns. Here, we investigate experimentally the dynamic behavior of CdSe NPs through time-lapse fluorescence microscopy imaging. Complete visualization and measurement of the directed-assembling process of NPs immersed in polydimethylsiloxane fluid is reported, which shows some unpredicted results with respect to the previous works, thus opening the route for designing in principle a reversible and switchable device allowing two different and reversible final NP-patterned states. The observed phenomena are fully analyzed by experimental and simulated analysis, and the movements of NPs is performed to elucidate in depth the involved processes. The investigation furnishes an interesting result that the complex behavior of the NPs can be fully comprehended and explained by considering the superposition of both EP and DEP forces.