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Transparent carbon nanotube electrodes for electric cell-substrate impedance sensing

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Abstract

Electric cell–substrate impedance sensing is widely used to study cell behavior such as adhesion, migration, and cell toxicity. However, a simultaneous optical imaging of cells is limited by inefficient transmission of visible light through the gold electrodes. To overcome this limitation, we fabricated carbon nanotube (CNT) electrodes with high electrical conductivity as well as optical transmittance. The impedimetric monitoring of cell proliferation and migration by gold and CNT electrodes were compared and analyzed. Taking advantage of the optical transparency of CNTs, we demonstrated a simultaneous electronic and optical monitoring of MCF7 cells, with acquisition of high-resolution images.

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Acknowledgments

This work was partly supported by the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7 People: Marie-Curie Actions/2007-2013) under the Grant Agreement n° 607896, the International Graduate School for Science and Engineering (IGSSE) at the Technische Universität München. Here, we would like to thank Markus Becherer for his support during the project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Institute for Nanoelectronics, Technical University of Munich, Arcisstraße 21, 80333, Munich, Germany

    Shokoufeh Teymouri, Florin Loghin & Marco Bobinger

  2. ibidi GmbH, Lochhamer Schlag 11, 82166, Gräfelfing, Germany

    Shokoufeh Teymouri & Zeno Guttenberg

  3. Faculty of Science and Technology, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, 39100, Bolzano, Italy

    Paolo Lugli

Authors
  1. Shokoufeh Teymouri
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  2. Florin Loghin
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  3. Marco Bobinger
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  4. Zeno Guttenberg
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  5. Paolo Lugli
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Shokoufeh Teymouri.

Supplementary material

Supplementary material

The supplementary material for this article can be found at: https://doi.org/10.1557/mrc.2019.116.

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Teymouri, S., Loghin, F., Bobinger, M. et al. Transparent carbon nanotube electrodes for electric cell-substrate impedance sensing. MRS Communications 9, 1292–1299 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1557/mrc.2019.116

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1557/mrc.2019.116

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