Developing interfaces between active materials and biological structures is becoming increasingly important for manipulating and interrogating living systems for use in advanced biological engineering. We have developed techniques for transferring graphene-based thin film materials from one substrate to another without needing to use harsh chemicals to detach the films from their initial substrates. This allows us to interface a number of materials directly with biological substrates including live stem cells without sacrificing viability. We found that partially reduced graphene oxide can be used as a transferrable surface for printing a number of materials, including metallic structures, fluorescent cell dyes, and phase-separated block copolymers. The mild transfer techniques we have developed allow us to easily probe biological systems at the scale of individual cells, and we can also use our transferrable block copolymer technology to lithographically pattern novel hierarchical structures on arbitrary substrates. These capabilities offer a cheap and easy way to exert spatiotemporal control over single cells and cell-cell interactions.

Integrating transferrable chemically modified graphene with materials and biological substrates

ACS Spring Meeting 2021

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.