Infections resulting from bacterial biofilm formation on the surface of medical devices are challenging to treat and can cause significant patient morbidity. Recently, it has become apparent that regulation of surface nanotopography can render surfaces bactericidal. In this study, poly(ethylene terephthalate) nanocone arrays are generated through a polystyrene nanosphere-mask colloidal lithographic process. It is shown that modification of the mask diameter leads to a direct modification of centre-to-centre spacing between nanocones. By altering the oxygen plasma etching time it is possible to modify the height, tip width and base diameter of the individual nanocone features. The bactericidal activity of the nanocone arrays was investigated against Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae. It is shown that surfaces with the most densely populated nanocone arrays (center-to-center spacing of 200 nm), higher aspect ratios (>3) and tip widths <20 nm kill the highest percentage of bacteria (∼30%).

由医疗器械表面细菌生物膜形成引起的感染难以治疗，并且可能导致严重的患者发病率。近来，已经明显的是，对表面纳米形貌的调节可以使表面具有杀菌性。在这项研究中，聚对苯二甲酸乙二醇酯纳米锥阵列是通过聚苯乙烯纳米球-掩模胶体光刻工艺产生的。结果表明，掩模直径的改变导致纳米锥之间中心到中心间距的直接改变。通过改变氧等离子体蚀刻时间，可以改变单个纳米锥特征的高度，尖端宽度和基部直径。研究了纳米锥阵列对大肠杆菌和肺炎克雷伯菌的杀菌活性。结果表明，具有最密集的纳米锥阵列（中心到中心间距200 nm），较高的长宽比（> 3）和尖端宽度<20 nm的表面杀死了最高百分比的细菌（〜30％）。