Fabrication of micropatterned arrays of gold nanoparticles for photothermal manipulation of living cells.

Abstract The fabrication of micro/nanostructured surfaces functionalized with stimulus-responsive chemical groups proved to be an interesting approach to simultaneously confine cell adhesion and manipulate cell–substrate interactions down to the single cell level. However, reversibility of stimulus-triggered systems is often not possible or exhibits slow switching kinetics. In contrast to such setups, gold nanoparticles have the properties to efficiently and reversibly generate heat under illumination at their plasmon resonance band. Thus, photo-induced heating could be used to directly and locally interface living cells and dynamically tailor the interactions to their adhesive environment. In the present chapter, we will first detail the preparation of micropatterned and functionalized gold nanoparticles immobilized on glass coverslips, and then report how to reliably characterize the photothermal properties of such substrates that enable the dynamic manipulation of cells.