Surface Texturing of Polyethylene Terephthalate Induced by Excimer Laser in Silver Nanoparticle Colloids.

Jakub Siegel,Miroslav Šlouf,Petr Slepička,Václav Švorčík,Jana Pryjmaková,Tatiana Savenkova

doi:10.3390/ma14123263

Abstract

We report on a novel technique of surface texturing of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) foil in the presence of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs). This approach provides a variable surface morphology of PET evenly decorated with AgNPs. Surface texturing occurred in silver nanoparticle colloids of different concentrations under the action of pulse excimer laser. Surface morphology of PET immobilized with AgNPs was observed by AFM and FEGSEM. Atomic concentration of silver was determined by XPS. A presented concentration-controlled procedure of surface texturing of PET in the presence of silver colloids leads to a highly nanoparticle-enriched polymer surface with a variable morphology and uniform nanoparticle distribution.

Highlights

Natural and synthetic polymeric materials are widely used in the manufacture of biomedical supplies [1,2,3]
In this work we introduced a simple and versatile approach for laser induced texturing of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) foil in the presence of silver nanoparticles
Compared to laser fluence-controlled approaches, our procedure enables to maintain a size of nanoparticles while controlling the resulting morphology of the polymer

Summary

Introduction

Natural and synthetic polymeric materials are widely used in the manufacture of biomedical supplies [1,2,3]. Due to the versatility of their surface properties, which may be tailored by means of physical and chemical processes, polymers are suitable candidates for biomimetic structures in medical applications. These biomaterials are used in tissue engineering [1], implants [4], drug-delivery carriers [5], wound healing materials or in biological imaging [6]. A common problem in current research of polymers for biomedical applications is the adhesion of bacteria and the formation of biofilms on the surface of medical devices. Bacteria succeed in developing mechanisms to neutralize the effect of these therapeutics [7].

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