Surface enhancement of a molecularly imprinted polymer film using sacrificial silica beads for increasing l-arabitol chemosensor sensitivity and detectability.

Molecular imprinting in polymers leads, among others, to synthetic receptors of high selectivity, comparable to that of their biological counterparts. Deposition of a thin non-porous molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) film directly on a transducer surface enables fabrication of chemosensors for various health relevant biocompounds. However, the sensitivity of a chemosensor with such an MIP film as the recognition unit is limited, mostly because of slow analyte diffusion through this film.

Enantioselective recognition at mesoporous chiral metal surfaces.

Chirality is widespread in natural systems, and artificial reproduction of chiral recognition is a major scientific challenge, especially owing to various potential applications ranging from catalysis to sensing and separation science. In this context, molecular imprinting is a well-known approach for generating materials with enantioselective properties, and it has been successfully employed using polymers. However, it is particularly difficult to synthesize chiral metal matrices by this method.

Combined macro-/mesoporous microelectrode arrays for low-noise extracellular recording of neural networks.

Microelectrode arrays (MEAs) are appealing tools to probe large neural ensembles and build neural prostheses. Microelectronics microfabrication technologies now allow building high-density MEAs containing several hundreds of microelectrodes. However, several major problems become limiting factors when the size of the microelectrodes decreases.

Nanostructuration strategies to enhance microelectrode array (MEA) performance for neuronal recording and stimulation.

Microelectrode arrays (MEAs) are widely used tools for recording and stimulating extracellular neuronal activity. Major limitations when decreasing electrode size in dense arrays are increased noise level and low charge injection capability. Nanostructuration of the electrode sites on MEAs presents an efficient way to overcome these problems by decreasing the impedance of the electrode/solution interface.