Obtaining hydroxyapatite coatings for applications in biosensors

• Grant number: 08/11329-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: June 01, 2009
• End date: February 28, 2011
• Field of knowledge: Engineering - Materials and Metallurgical Engineering - Nonmetallic Materials
• Principal Investigator: Cecilia Amelia de Carvalho Zavaglia
• Grantee: Luci Cristina de Oliveira Vercik
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Engenharia Mecânica (FEM). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Novel technologies impulse the economical development. Particularly, the domain of the nano- and bio- technologies are fundamental for those countries expecting to enter the group of development nations. The field of biosensors conjugates the advances of both sciences, and it has shown an amazing growth only comparable with the evolution of microelectronics. Within this context, the challenges related with the development of new materials and processes have received great attention in the last years. The aim of this project is to develop and improve techniques for obtaining hydroxyapatite (HA) coatings on materials used for biosensors and BioMEMS. The monocrystalline silicon (Si) substrates and porous Si used during this work will be coated with HA using these techniques: biomimetic and Langmuir-Blodgett-biomimetic. These systems have many applications in biomedicine and food and pharmaceutic industry. The silicon subtsrates will be characterized by X-ray difractometry (XRD) for checking the orientation of the crystalline lattice and by conductivity measurements for electrical characterization. The doping concentration of the substrates and the thickness of the HA coatings wil be analyzed by capacitance measurements and the porosity of the porous silicon substrate will be determined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) end by photoluminescence. The coatings will be characterized by XRD and small-angle X-ray, allowing the identification of the present crystalline phases, by infra-red spectroscopy (FTIRD) for determination of the presence of functional groups characteristic of each coating and by SEM and atomic force microscopy (AFM) for analysis of the morphology of the material.