Functionality of porous silicon particles: Surface modification for biomedical applications

Porous silicon-based particles (PSps) with tailored physical and biological properties have recently attracted great attention given their biomedical potential. Within this context, the objective of the present work is to optimize the experimental parameters for the formation of biofunctional mesoporous PSps. Their functionality has been studied on the one hand by analyzing the fluorescence characteristics, such as tunable narrow band emission and fluorescence aging for PSps with different molecular capping. With regard to the biofunctional characteristics, two different molecular end-capping processes have been assayed: antifouling polyethylene glycol (PEG) and polar binding amino silanes (APTS), which were evaluated by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Both PEG and APTS binding to the particles could be confirmed from the analysis of Si 2p and C 1s XPS core level spectra. The finding that these PSp-molecule conjugates allow the reduction of fluorescence degradation with time in solution is of interest for the development of cellular or tissue markers. From the morphological point of view, PEG termination is of special interest allowing the PSps after an ultrasonic treatment to get spherical shapes in the micron scale. The functionality as solid state dyes is preliminarily evaluated by direct fluorescence imaging.