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Conducting polymer nanostructures for biological applications

Abstract

A novel polypyrrole nanowire actuator was fabricated and characterized, representing a completely new approach to the design of nanoscale mechanically active components (nanomachines). This design paradigm takes advantage of the fact that unique properties of polypyrrole allow development of mechanically active nanostructures capable of operating in aqueous salt solutions with many potential applications biology and medicine. Template synthesis technique was used to electropolymerize polypyrrole nanowires in the nanoporous alumina templates. Commercial alumina filters were used both "as is" and patterned with microbeads to reduce the open pore density, along with anodized alumina prepared as a thin film on a semiconductor substrate. The ability of the nanowires to expand and contract with applied voltage was then evaluated with scanning electron microscopy and high- resolution optical microscopy. It was confirmed that the nanowires can function as nanoactuators, which is a significant advance in developing nanomechanical structures. Polypyrrole nanoactuators are electrically controlled, rather than relying on changing the chemical composition of solution, can be easily synthesized in parallel and in high numbers without requiring e-beam lithography, and can operate in aqueous salt solutions at biologically-relevant pH. Furthermore, the speed of polypyrrole actuators depends on their size due to diffusion limitations, and nanoactuators are therefore able to operate at higher speeds that micro- or macro- sized devices. The development of these nanoactuators paves the way for mimicking the function of biological actuators such as cilia, creation of controllable membranes, small particle manipulation, cellular nanomechanical probes, and many other biomedical applications. Furthermore, the same technology and process flow used for fabrication of nanoactuators was also used to create nanosensors for detection of electrochemically oxidizable neurotransmitters such as catecholamines. The small size of the sensors allowed rapid time response and detection of low concentrations of dopamine

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