Biology & Biomedical
Effective biological and biomedical research requires specific control of the cellular microenvironment and biomaterial characteristics. Plasma treatment cleans and activates the surfaces of biomaterials through the introduction of functional groups without affecting the bulk. Increased hydrophilicity or hydrophobicity of material surfaces increase the adhesion, coverage and proliferation of cells or induce the formation of spheroids respectively. In addition, plasma treatment has been shown to improve biocompatibility characteristics for numerous applications. As a result plasma treatments is used extensively for cell seeding, protein adsorption, biomaterial coating and implant surface activation. This page contains brief application summaries and relevant articles concerning the use of plasma treatment in biological and biomedical research.
Nanowires
Conductive nanowires have been extensively studied recently for their potential use as transparent conducting electrodes in flexible electronics, wearable biosensors (wearable electronics), organic light emitting diodes OLEDs, and solar cells [1-3]....
Next Generation Sequencing (NGS)
Next Generation Sequencing (NGS), or deep sequencing, provides researchers and clinicians with extensive genetic data with a multitude of applications. By fragmenting genetic materials and performing millions to billions of reads simultaneously,...
Covid-19 Research
The fight against the Covid-19 pandemic has required unprecedented efforts by the research community to understand, diagnose, and treat the Sars-Cov-2 virus. Harrick Plasma is proud to have its plasma cleaners involved in this groundbreaking...
3D Printing
3D printing is ubiquitous in modern professional and academic laboratories, where researchers continue to find innovative applications. Its essential function is to rapidly provide complex 3D structures with high precision. The technology is now...
Cryogenic Electron Microscopy (Cryo EM)
Cryogenic electron microscopy (Cryo-EM) has emerged as one of the most powerful tools in structural biology, enabling researchers to resolve protein complexes, receptor-ligand interactions, and viral structures at near-atomic resolution. A critical...
Single Cell Sequencing
Single cell RNA sequencing (ScRNA-seq) is a powerful tool developed to identify gene expression of individual cells in complex biological tissues. Conventional assays assume homogeneity, averaging gene characteristics across all cells within a...
Featured Distributor: SmarTeam
Harrick Plasma is happy to announce our renewed exclusive distributor relationship with SmarTeam, our sole exclusive agent to offer Harrick Plasma products in Taiwan. With offices in Taipei and Taichung, SmarTeam offers professional sales and...
Graphene-based Sensors
Graphene, a single atomic layer of carbon with a hexagonal crystal structure, is especially appealing for use in sensor applications because of its high surface area and abundance of active sites for analyte capture, favorable semiconductor properties such as high...
Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM)
Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) is a versatile tool that directly measures and maps intermolecular forces with atomic resolution. AFM is used across a wide range of disciplines to characterize mechanical properties, to generate 3D surface profiles,...
Enhance Plasmonic Response in Silver Nanoparticles
Localized Surface Plasmon Resonance (LSPR) is gaining interest as a highly sensitive analytical technique to detect chemical and biological molecules in low concentrations. Plasma treatment is utilized to clean patterned substrates, specifically designed for LSPR, and...
Acoustofluidics
Surface acoustic waves (SAW) offer high precision, contactless control of small volumes of liquid in microfluidic devices. Through the implementation of SAW in microfluidic devices (Acoustofluidics), researchers can achieve label free sorting of...
Spin Coating
Using plasma treatment and spin coating in combination, researchers can achieve uniform material coatings with improved stability and performance. Plasma treatment alters surface chemistry by introducing hydrophilic oxygen containing functional groups. Polar groups...
Immunoassay Development
Immunoassays identify disease biomarkers in patient samples and enable the detection of viruses, cancers and various other pathogens by exploiting the relationship between antibodies and antigens [1]. Widely used diagnostic immunoassays such as...
Fluorescence Microscopy
Plasma cleaning is essential to the preparation of fluorescence microscopy samples. Plasma removes organic contamination and introduces polar groups to glass or quartz slide surfaces. As a result, plasma removes fluorescent impurities that would...
Organ on a Chip
Organ on a chip models, fabricated with plasma treatment, replicate key tissue structure, function and other physiological characteristics to better explore drug delivery, toxicology and disease progression in vitro. In medical research, in vivo...
Plasma Treatment & Resin Bond Strength in Dental Ceramics
A Harrick Plasma cleaner was recently highlighted at the 49th Annual Session of the American College of Prosthodontists (Oct 30 - Nov 2, 2019) in Miami, FL by researchers from the U.S. Army Advanced Education in Prosthodontics. The poster, titled...
Titanium Implants
Plasma treatment is used to tailor titanium and titanium alloy surface properties for improved osseointegration in dental and orthopedic implant research. Titanium is a well-known and frequently used implant biomaterial due to its biocompatibility,...
Featured Distributor: Alpha Science
Harrick Plasma is happy to announce a new exclusive distributor relationship with Alpha Science in South Korea. Centrally located in Seoul, Alpha Science offers improved customer service and support for Korean universities, national research...
Featured User: Fesarius Therapeutics
Harrick Plasma is excited to partner with FesariusTherapeutics Inc., maker of DermiSpere™, a dermal regeneration scaffold that promises game-changing efficacy in a $5 billion addressable market. DermiSphere utilizes patented collagen microsphere...
TiO2 Nanostructures for Solar Cells
Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSC) have been heavily investigated as a promising low-cost alternative to silicon-based solar cells. A combination of TiCl4 chemical and O2 plasma treatment has been studied to improve the performance of DSSCs based on...