Micro-textured stainless steel material towards enhancement for adhesion of red blood cell

In this research, the stainless steel sheet (EN-1.4301) is selected to investigate the adhesive interaction of the RBC to the textured and non-textured surfaces. The sheet sample is equally divided into two sides, one is textured with pillar patterns and the other side remains non-textured as conventionally finished surface (smooth surface). The pillar patterns were fabricated by laser surface texturing (LST) technology with a picosecond laser. Atomic force microscopic (AFM) single-cell indentation tests are performed on the RBC to the counter-surfaces. Based on the experimental results, Force-Piezo Displacement curves under all three press distances (30, 50, 80%) of the RBC thickness, show strong adhesion signals of the RBC to pillar textured stainless steel surface. Compared to non-textured stainless steel surface, such adhesive behavior is not observed. From the perspective of contact mechanics, these phenomena can be explained based on the change of bending energy, interaction energy and surface contact area of cell membrane due to the micro-deformations among the contact regions of the RBC and pillar patterns. These findings expand our understanding of RBC adhesive behavior (possibly to all cell types) to the micro-textured counter-surface.