This presentation will review our recent progress on the application of ultrafast lasers for the three-dimensional biomimetic modification of materials’ surfaces for neural tissue engineering applications. We show that the artificial surfaces obtained by femtosecond laser texturing of solids comprise dual scale quasiperiodic structures at the micro- and nano- length scales that better simulate the morphology of the extracellular matrix. The ability to precisely control the structures’ geometry and pattern regularity is an important advantage for the use of the laser fabricated surfaces as models to study the dependence of growth, division and differentiation of cells on topographical cues. We focus on the control of the outgrowth of neuronal cultured cells which is of critical importance in a wide spectrum of neuro-science applications, including tissue engineering scaffolds and neural electrodes. For this purpose, laser-patterned silicon surfaces comprising arrays of micro/nano cones were employed.
It is shown that the geometrical characteristics of the structured surfaces alone could drive the directional outgrowth of neurons, glial cells as well as complex cell cultures of the peripheral nervous system. This distinct inherent property of the microstructures to direct cell outgrowth, combined with the conductance of the material, could potentially be useful for patterning neurons into artificial networks, as well as for the development of microchip-based devices that can electrically interface neuronal networks of defined directional topologies.