Gallium phosphide nanowire arrays and their possible application in cellular force investigations

The authors report the fabrication of gallium phosphide nanowire arrays that can be used for cellular force measurements. The nanowire positions are defined using electron beam lithography and the nanowires are grown using metal organic vapor phase epitaxy. By varying the nanowire diameter, length, and spacing from substrate to substrate, they can expect to probe cell forces over several orders of magnitude, depending on the chosen substrate. The small diameter of the nanowires allows them to densely pack the array and to achieve unprecedented spatial resolution for future cell force-array applications.