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    Fibroblast Response to Nanocolumnar TiO2 Structures Grown by Oblique Angle Sputter Deposition
    (Weinheim : Wiley-VCH, 2021) Kapprell, Uta; Friebe, Sabrina; Grüner, Susann; Grüner, Christoph; Kupferer, Astrid; Rauschenbach, Bernd; Mayr, Stefan G.
    Cells are established to sense and respond to the properties, including nano- and microscale morphology, of the substrate they adhere to, which opens up the possibility to tailor bioactivity. With this background, the potential of tilted TiO2 nanostructures grown by oblique angle sputtering to affect fibroblasts with particular focus on inducing anisotropy in cell behavior is explored. By depositing TiO2 at different oblique angles relative to the substrate normal, morphologies, columnar tilt angle, roughness, and distances between neighbored nanocolumns can be adjusted. To assess bioactivity of the resulting structures, L929-mouse fibroblasts are seeded in vitro on TiO2 nanostructured substrates. Angle-dependent movement and velocity distributions of the cells on differently tilted columns and a smooth reference sample are studied. Cell proliferation rates and cell areas are additional factors which provide information about viability and the well-being of cells. It could be shown that the local topography of the surface has an influence on the directed movement of the cells. © 2021 The Authors. Advanced Materials Interfaces published by Wiley-VCH GmbH
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    Biaxially Textured Titanium Thin Films by Oblique Angle Deposition: Conditions and Growth Mechanisms
    (Weinheim : Wiley-VCH, 2020) Liedtke-Grüner, Susann; Grüner, Christoph; Lotnyk, Andriy; Gerlach, Juergen W.; Rauschenbach, Bernd
    Growing highly crystalline nanowires over large substrate areas remains an ambiguous task nowadays. Herein, a time-efficient and easy-to-handle bottom-up approach is demonstrated that enables the self-assembled growth of biaxially textured Ti thin films composed of single-crystalline nanowires in a single-deposition step. Ti thin films are deposited under highly oblique incidence angles by electron beam evaporation on amorphous substrates. Substrate temperature, angle of the incoming particle flux, and working pressure are varied to optimize the crystallinity in those films. Height-resolved structure information of individual nanowires is provided by a transmission electron microscopy (TEM) nanobeam, high-resolution TEM, and electron diffraction. Ti nanowires are polycrystalline at 77 K, whereas for ≥300 K, single-crystalline nanowires are tendentially found. The Ti crystals grow along the thermodynamically favored c-direction, but the nanowires’ tilt angle is determined by shadowing. Biaxially textured Ti thin films require a certain temperature range combined with highly oblique deposition angles, which is proved by X-ray in-plane pole figures. A general correlation between average activation energy for surface self-diffusion and melting point of metals is given to estimate the significant influence of surface self-diffusion on the evolution of obliquely deposited metal thin films.