Zinc Oxide Nanowires on Printed Circuit Boards
Printed circuit boards (PCBs), which are widely used for the fabrication of electronic circuits, can only withstand rather low temperatures. For this reason, the fabrication of high-density, long ZnO nanostructures on PCBs still remains a complex task. In fact, in absence of a seed-layer, whose annealing would require high temperatures, solution-growth methods only allow to synthesize low-density arrays of nanowires. Here we evaluate methods for overcoming this issue and, as a prototype, demonstrate a simple displacement sensor.
Nanotransducers on printed circuit boards by rational design of high-density, long, thin and untapered ZnO nanowires
Abstract Nanotransducers can offer crucial advantages in comparison with conventional sensors and actuators. However, interfacing and packaging nanostructures into complete electronic systems is very complex. Here we describe a wet chemical method for cointegrating arrays of ZnO nanowires into systems on printed circuit boards (PCBs). First, we deposit on the PCB a MnOOH layer for reproducibly increasing the nanowires density. Afterwards, we numerically demonstrate that the ligand ethylenediamine, at the isoelectric point of the ZnO nanowires tips, can effectively control, at very low concentrations, both zinc speciation and supersaturation in the nutrient solution. Accordingly, we combine …
High-density ZnO Nanowires as a Reversible Myogenic-Differentiation-Switch
Mesoangioblasts are outstanding candidates for stem-cell therapy and are already being explored in clinical trials. However, a crucial challenge in regenerative medicine is the limited availability of undifferentiated myogenic progenitor cells because growth is typically accompanied by differentiation. Here reversible myogenic-differentiation switching during proliferation is achieved by functionalizing the glass substrate with high-density ZnO nanowires (NWs). Specifically, mesoangioblasts grown on ZnO NWs present a spherical viable undifferentiated cell state without lamellopodia formation during the entire observation time (8 days). Consistently, the myosin heavy chain, typically express…