Maskless photopatterning of cells in microfluidic devices/

Abstract

Upon examining current methods for printing and patterning of live biological cells, there is a need for a method capable of printing with the resolution of single biological cells to organize them into complex structures. In order to fill this need, building upon previous design of a dynamic lithography system, a stop flow lithography system was implemented capable of patterning individual particles with a mean accuracy of 11.92 [mu]m and a standard deviation of 4.63 [mu]m. This was achieved by improving the tracking capability of the software by measuring the exposure vs velocity relationship to anchor the particle as well as implementing a stop flow lithography based software approach. With the goal of producing 3D functionalized tissue, a 3D printing module was constructed for the dynamic lithography system that constructed microscale parts with a minimum layer height 16.42 [mu]m of and planar resolution of 10 [mu]m, comparable to the top available micro-scale 3D printers. To push the capability of the system, I analyzed and presented the limitations of the process via an opto-thermal model, and a computational fluid dynamics model which is then studied through a previously developed throughput analysis to get a theoretical maximum output of the system. In analyzing the limitations of the printing process, maximum input optical system power was characterized, and a theoretical maximum system throughput of 10,000 particles per second was calculated. This work is a step towards voxel based multimaterial printing, leading to printing of living artificial biological organs, better organs on a chip, or even bionic implants that combine electrical and biological elements.