Mammalian fibroblast cells show strong preference for laser-generated hybrid amorphous silicon-SiO2 textures.

Background: In this study, we investigated a method to produce bioactive hybrid amorphous silicon and silicon oxide patterns using nanosecond laser pulses. Methods: Microscale line patterns were made by laser pulses on silicon wafers at different frequencies (25, 70 and 100 kHz), resulting in ablation patterns with frequency-dependent physical and chemical properties. Results: Incubating the laser-treated silicon substrates with simulated body fluid demonstrated that the physicochemical properties of the laser-treated samples were stable under these conditions, and favored the deposition of bone-like apatite. More importantly, while NIH 3T3 fibroblasts did colonize the untreated regions of the silicon wafers, they showed a strong preference for the laser-treated regions, and further discriminated between substrates treated with different frequencies. Conclusions: Taken together, these data suggest that laser materials processing of silicon-based devices is a promising avenue to pursue in the production of biosensors and other bionic devices.