Conductive Electrochemically Active Lubricant‐Infused Nanostructured Surfaces Attenuate Coagulation and Enable Friction‐Less Droplet Manipulation

AbstractMicro/nanostructured materials and lubricant‐infused surfaces, both inspired from structures found in nature, are ideally suited for developing self‐cleaning and high surface area transducers for biosensing. These two classes of bio‐inspired technologies are integrated to develop lubricant‐infused electrodes designed to reduce biofouling. Chemical vapor deposition is used to create self‐assembled monolayers of fluorosilane on gold‐modified prestrained polystyrene substrates. After heat shrinking of the substrate, a lubricant is applied to produce a lubricant‐infused nanostructured gold wrinkled surface with hydrophobic properties. These electrically conductive surfaces demonstrate high water contact (≈150°) and low sliding angles (<5°). Moreover, combining these surfaces with passive magnetic actuators enables the actuation of super‐paramagnetic microdroplets in frictionless and open channel conditions without needing full droplet submersion in an immiscible fluid. The fabricated nanostructured surfaces resist protein adhesion in a human plasma coagulation assay and significantly prolong clotting times and retain electrical conductivity, which is essential for electrical sensing applications. The developed hybrid interfaces are expected to have a wide range of applications in biosensing and biological sample preparation involving complex clinical and environmental samples.

Conductive Electrochemically Active Lubricant‐Infused Nanostructured Surfaces Attenuate Coagulation and Enable Friction‐Less Droplet Manipulation Journal Articles