Investigation on bacterial adhesion and colonisation resistance over laser-machined micro patterned surfaces

Micro-nano patterns created directly over solid surfaces to combat microbial activity help in preventing hospital-acquired infections. This Letter is focused on defining surface topologies by laser patterning over solid surfaces. Studies on designing surface topologies and bacterial culture have been carried out and the feasibility of micro scale features in restricting bacterial growth has been investigated. The effects of the engineered roughness index and contact angle are discussed. Contact angle measurement over patterned surfaces using a novel computer vision-based technique is demonstrated and the effect of contact angle on bacterial adhesion has been presented. The results obtained show that the designed micro scale geometries can effectively reduce the growth of bacteria on the said surfaces.