ABSTRACT
The investigation of materials under extreme pressure conditions requires high-performance cells whose design invariably involves trade-offs between the maximum achievable pressure, the allowed sample volume, and the possibility of real-time pressure monitoring. With a newly conceived hybrid piston-clamped anvil cell, we offer a relatively simple and versatile system, suitable for nuclear magnetic resonance experiments up to 4.4 GPa. Finite-element models, taking into account mechanical and thermal conditions, were used to optimize and validate the design prior to the realization of the device. Cell body and gaskets were made of beryllium-copper alloy and the pistons and pusher were made of tungsten carbide, while the anvils consist of zirconium dioxide. The low-temperature pressure cell performance was tested by monitoring in situ the pressure-dependent 63Cu nuclear-quadrupole-resonance signal of Cu2O.
ABSTRACT
The quantal release of oxidizable molecules can be successfully monitored by means of polarized carbon fiber microelectrodes (CFEs) positioned in close proximity to the cell membrane. To partially overcome certain CFE limitations, mainly related to their low spatial resolution and lack of optical transparency, we developed a planar boron-doped nanocrystalline diamond (NCD) prototype, grown on a transparent sapphire wafer. Responsiveness to applied catecholamines as well as the electrochemical and optical properties of the NCD-based device were first characterized by cyclic voltammetry and optical transmittance measurements. By stimulating chromaffin cells positioned on the device with external KCl, well-resolved quantal exocytotic events could be detected either from one NCD microelectrode, or simultaneously from an array of four microelectrodes, indicating that the chip is able to monitor secretory events (amperometric spikes) from a number of isolated chromaffin cells. Spikes detected by the planar NCD device had comparable amplitudes, kinetics and vesicle diameter distributions as those measured by conventional CFEs from the same chromaffin cell.
Subject(s)
Aluminum Oxide/chemistry , Biosensing Techniques/instrumentation , Chromaffin Cells/metabolism , Diamond/chemistry , Microarray Analysis/instrumentation , Microelectrodes , Nanostructures/chemistry , Animals , Cells, Cultured , Conductometry/instrumentation , Crystallization/methods , Equipment Design , Equipment Failure Analysis , Mice , Microchemistry/instrumentation , Nanostructures/ultrastructure , Nanotechnology/instrumentationABSTRACT
In this paper we report about the role the diamond surface morphology and atomic termination plays in the survival and viability of neuronal cells, which represent an appropriate experimental model for the development of cell-based biosensors. The samples we have investigated were both CVD homoepitaxial diamond films and nanocrystalline diamond layers deposited on quartz substrates. Different surface terminations were induced through exposure to atomic hydrogen and to intense UV irradiation. GT1-7 cells, a neuronal line of hypothalamic origin, were plated directly onto the diamond surfaces without exogenous adhesion molecules, in order to correlate the surface topography and chemistry to cell growth and viability. The cell density on nanocrystalline diamonds after 48 h from plating was approximately 55% of the control on plastic dishes, whatever is the atomic termination of the surface, whereas the performances of homoepitaxial samples in terms of cell growth depend on surface termination and were significantly lower, 30%.