Interactions of nanowires with cells and tissue

III-V nanowires have tunable dimensions, between 40 nm and 100 nm in diameter and between 1 and 15 μm in length. Due to their small diameter, they are ideal candidates to interact with cells without detrimental effects on the cell viability. Nanowires can be used as sensors: in our case, we have shown that arrays of vertical gallium phosphide nanowires are promising materials for biosensing in membranes, neural implant development as well as for cellular mechanosensing. Moreover, due to the exceptional control one can achieve during synthesis over their geometrical and optical properties, III-V nanowires are ideal materials to investigate the interactions of high aspect ratio nanoparticles with living cells and tissue.