Abstract
Driven by flexibility, precision, repeatability and eco-friendliness, laser-based technologies have attracted great interest to engineer or to analyze materials in various fields including energy, environment, biology and medicine. A major advantage of laser processing relies on the ability to directly structure matter at different scales and to prepare novel materials with unique physical and chemical properties. It is also a contact-free approach that makes it possible to work in inert or reactive liquid or gaseous environment. This leads today to a unique opportunity for designing, fabricating and even analyzing novel complex bio-systems. To illustrate this potential, in this paper, we gather our recent research on four types of laser-based methods relevant for nano-/micro-scale applications. First, we present and discuss pulsed laser ablation in liquid, exploited today for synthetizing ultraclean “bare” nanoparticles attractive for medicine and tissue engineering applications. Second, we discuss robust methods for rapid surface and bulk machining (subtractive manufacturing) at different scales by laser ablation. Among them, the microsphere-assisted laser surface engineering is detailed for its appropriateness to design structured substrates with hierarchically periodic patterns at nano-/micro-scale without chemical treatments. Third, we address the laser-induced forward transfer, a technology based on direct laser printing, to transfer and assemble a multitude of materials (additive structuring), including biological moiety without alteration of functionality. Finally, the fourth method is about chemical analysis: we present the potential of laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy, providing a unique tool for contact-free and space-resolved elemental analysis of organic materials. Overall, we present and discuss the prospect and complementarity of emerging reliable laser technologies, to address challenges in materials’ preparation relevant for the development of innovative multi-scale and multi-material platforms for bio-applications.
Highlights
We report four illustrative examples including: (I) the pulsed laser ablation in liquids (PLAL), (II) direct laser writing, including microsphere-assisted laser surface engineering for surface structuring at nano-/microlevel, (III) laser-induced forward transfer (LIFT) as a high-resolution printing method and (IV) laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS)-sensitive spatially resolved chemical analysis
Emerged as a “green” synthesis method, pulsed laser ablation in liquid appeared as a relevant process in the elaboration of ultra-clean colloidal NPs for a variety of applications, including in electronics, energy production and nanomedicine [43,44,63]
We describe here clinical applications of LIBS imaging to illustrate covery of strategic metals [218,219] and preclinical studies of drugs based on metallic nathe capabilities of the technique
Summary
The healthcare and wellbeing challenges, including energy and environment correlated issues, that we face nowadays ask for an extreme anticipation and reactivity from. The major concerns about NPs are high agglomeration rates or undesired chemical coatings/residues due to the synthesis process Usually, such techniques take place under complex physicochemical conditions (e.g., temperature, pH pressure, etc.), starting from hazardous reactants (e.g., citrate, HF, etc.), which can alter the interaction with the biological tissues and lead to potential contamination issues [29,30,31,32]. We report four illustrative examples including: (I) the pulsed laser ablation in liquids (PLAL), (II) direct laser writing, including microsphere-assisted laser surface engineering for surface structuring at nano-/microlevel, (III) laser-induced forward transfer (LIFT) as a high-resolution printing method and (IV) laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS)-sensitive spatially resolved chemical analysis We highlight their potential and complementarity in material science, towards the development and analysis of innovative platforms for healthcare applications
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