Spatially and optically tailored 3D printing for highly miniaturized and integrated microfluidics.
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Sanchez Noriega JL
PROVIDER: S-EPMC8448845 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Similar Datasets
Project description:Controlled fabrication of semiconductor nanostructures is an essential step in engineering of high performance photonic and optoelectronic devices. Diamond in particular has recently attracted considerable attention as a promising platform for quantum technologies, photonics and high resolution sensing applications. Here we demonstrate the fabrication of optically active, functional diamond structures using gas-mediated electron beam induced etching (EBIE). The technique achieves dry chemical etching at room temperature through the dissociation of surface-adsorbed H2O molecules by energetic electrons in a water vapor environment. Parallel processing is possible by electron flood exposure and the use of an etch mask, while high resolution, mask-free, iterative editing is demonstrated by direct write etching of inclined facets of diamond microparticles. The realized structures demonstrate the potential of EBIE for the fabrication of optically active structures in diamond.
| S-EPMC4028895 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Additive manufacturing has been a cornerstone of the product development pipeline for decades, playing an essential role in the creation of both functional and cosmetic prototypes. In recent years, the prospects for distributed and open source manufacturing have grown tremendously. This growth has been enabled by an expanding library of printable materials, low-cost printers, and communities dedicated to platform development. The microfluidics community has embraced this opportunity to integrate 3D printing into the suite of manufacturing strategies used to create novel fluidic architectures. The rapid turnaround time and low cost to implement these strategies in the lab makes 3D printing an attractive alternative to conventional micro- and nanofabrication techniques. In this work, the production of multiple microfluidic architectures using a hybrid 3D printing-soft lithography approach is demonstrated and shown to enable rapid device fabrication with channel dimensions that take advantage of laminar flow characteristics. The fabrication process outlined here is underpinned by the implementation of custom design software with an integrated slicer program that replaces less intuitive computer aided design and slicer software tools. Devices are designed in the program by assembling parameterized microfluidic building blocks. The fabrication process and flow control within 3D printed devices were demonstrated with a gradient generator and two droplet generator designs. Precise control over the printing process allowed 3D microfluidics to be printed in a single step by extruding bridge structures to 'jump-over' channels in the same plane. This strategy was shown to integrate with conventional nanofabrication strategies to simplify the operation of a platform that incorporates both nanoscale features and 3D printed microfluidics.
| S-EPMC5875762 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Reconfigurable modular microfluidics presents an opportunity for flexibly constructing prototypes of advanced microfluidic systems. Nevertheless, the strategy of directly integrating modules cannot easily fulfill the requirements of common applications, e.g., the incorporation of materials with biochemical compatibility and optical transparency and the execution of small batch production of disposable chips for laboratory trials and initial tests. Here, we propose a manufacturing scheme inspired by the movable type printing technique to realize 3D free-assembly modular microfluidics. Double-layer 3D microfluidic structures can be produced by replicating the assembled molds. A library of modularized molds is presented for flow control, droplet generation and manipulation and cell trapping and coculture. In addition, a variety of modularized attachments, including valves, light sources and microscopic cameras, have been developed with the capability to be mounted onto chips on demand. Microfluidic systems, including those for concentration gradient generation, droplet-based microfluidics, cell trapping and drug screening, are demonstrated. This scheme enables rapid prototyping of microfluidic systems and construction of on-chip research platforms, with the intent of achieving high efficiency of proof-of-concept tests and small batch manufacturing.
| S-EPMC10495351 | biostudies-literature
Project description:In recent years, additive manufacturing has steadily gained attention in both research and industry. Applications range from prototyping to small-scale production, with 3D printing offering reduced logistics overheads, better design flexibility and ease of use compared with traditional fabrication methods. In addition, printer and material costs have also decreased rapidly. These advantages make 3D printing attractive for application in microfluidic chip fabrication. However, 3D printing microfluidics is still a new area. Is the technology mature enough to print complex microchannel geometries, such as droplet microfluidics? Can 3D-printed droplet microfluidic chips be used in biological or chemical applications? Is 3D printing mature enough to be used in every research lab? These are the questions we will seek answers to in our systematic review. We will analyze (1) the key performance metrics of 3D-printed droplet microfluidics and (2) existing biological or chemical application areas. In addition, we evaluate (3) the potential of large-scale application of 3D printing microfluidics. Finally, (4) we discuss how 3D printing and digital design automation could trivialize microfluidic chip fabrication in the long term. Based on our analysis, we can conclude that today, 3D printers could already be used in every research lab. Printing droplet microfluidics is also a possibility, albeit with some challenges discussed in this review.
| S-EPMC8004812 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Optical properties can be programmed on mesoscopic scales by patterning host materials while ordering their nanoparticle inclusions. While liquid crystals are often used to define the ordering of nanoparticles dispersed within them, this approach is typically limited to liquid crystals confined in classic geometries. In this work, the orientational order that liquid crystalline colloidal hosts impose on anisotropic nanoparticle inclusions is combined with an additive manufacturing method that enables engineered, macroscopic three-dimensional (3D) patterns of co-aligned gold nanorods and cellulose nanocrystals. These gels exhibit polarization-dependent plasmonic properties that emerge from the unique interaction between the host medium's anisotropic optical properties defined by orientationally ordered cellulose nanocrystals, from the liquid crystal's gold nanorod inclusions, and from the complexity of spatial patterns accessed with 3D printing. The gels' optical properties that are defined by the interplay of these effects are tuned by controlling the gels' order, which is tuned by adjusting the gels' cellulose nanocrystal concentrations. Lithe optical responsiveness of these composite gels to polarized radiation may enable unique technological applications like polarization-sensitive optical elements.
| S-EPMC6906772 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Single cell transcriptomics has emerged as a powerful approach to dissecting phenotypic heterogeneity in complex, unsynchronized cellular populations. However, many important biological questions demand quantitative analysis of large numbers of individual cells. Hence, new tools are urgently needed for efficient, inexpensive, and parallel manipulation of RNA from individual cells. We report a simple microfluidic platform for trapping single cell lysates in sealed, picoliter microwells capable of “printing” RNA on glass or capturing RNA on polymer beads. To demonstrate the utility of our system for single cell transcriptomics, we developed a highly scalable technology for genome-wide, single cell RNA-Seq. The current implementation of our device is pipette-operated, profiles hundreds of individual cells in parallel with library preparation costs of ~$0.10-$0.20/cell, and includes five lanes for simultaneous experiments. We anticipate that this system will ultimately serve as a general platform for large-scale single cell transcriptomics, compatible with both imaging and sequencing readouts.!Series_type = Expression profiling by high throughput sequencing A microfluidic device that pairs sequence-barcoded mRNA capture beads with individual cells was used to barcode cDNA from individual cells which was then pre-amplified by in vitro transcription in a pool and converted into an Illumina RNA-Seq library. Libraries were generated from ~600 individual cells in parallel and extensive analysis was done on 396 cells from the U87 and MCF10a cell lines and from ~500 individual cells with extensive analysis on 247 cells from the U87 and WI-38 cell lines. Sequencing was done on the 3'-end of the transcript molecules. The first read contains cell-identifying barcodes that were present on the capture bead and the second read contains a unique molecular identifier (UMI) barcode, a lane-identifying barcode, and then the sequence of the transcript.
2015-05-21 | E-GEOD-66357 | biostudies-arrayexpress
Project description:The performance of ultrasonic transducers is largely determined by the piezoelectric properties and geometries of their active elements. Due to the brittle nature of piezoceramics, existing processing tools for piezoelectric elements only achieve simple geometries, including flat disks, cylinders, cubes and rings. While advances in additive manufacturing give rise to free-form fabrication of piezoceramics, the resultant transducers suffer from high porosity, weak piezoelectric responses, and limited geometrical flexibility. We introduce optimized piezoceramic printing and processing strategies to produce highly responsive piezoelectric microtransducers that operate at ultrasonic frequencies. The 3D printed dense piezoelectric elements achieve high piezoelectric coefficients and complex architectures. The resulting piezoelectric charge constant, d33, and coupling factor, kt, of the 3D printed piezoceramic reach 583 pC/N and 0.57, approaching the properties of pristine ceramics. The integrated printing of transducer packaging materials and 3D printed piezoceramics with microarchitectures create opportunities for miniaturized piezoelectric ultrasound transducers capable of acoustic focusing and localized cavitation within millimeter-sized channels, leading to miniaturized ultrasonic devices that enable a wide range of biomedical applications.
| S-EPMC10140030 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Single cell transcriptomics has emerged as a powerful approach to dissecting phenotypic heterogeneity in complex, unsynchronized cellular populations. However, many important biological questions demand quantitative analysis of large numbers of individual cells. Hence, new tools are urgently needed for efficient, inexpensive, and parallel manipulation of RNA from individual cells. We report a simple microfluidic platform for trapping single cell lysates in sealed, picoliter microwells capable of “printing” RNA on glass or capturing RNA on polymer beads. To demonstrate the utility of our system for single cell transcriptomics, we developed a highly scalable technology for genome-wide, single cell RNA-Seq. The current implementation of our device is pipette-operated, profiles hundreds of individual cells in parallel with library preparation costs of ~$0.10-$0.20/cell, and includes five lanes for simultaneous experiments. We anticipate that this system will ultimately serve as a general platform for large-scale single cell transcriptomics, compatible with both imaging and sequencing readouts.!Series_type = Expression profiling by high throughput sequencing
2015-05-21 | GSE66357 | GEO
Project description:Fabrication of microchip-based devices using 3-D printing technology offers a unique platform to create separate modules that can be put together when desired for analysis. A 3-D printed module approach offers various advantages such as file sharing and the ability to easily replace, customize, and modify the individual modules. Here, we describe the use of a modular approach to electrochemically detect the ATP-mediated release of nitric oxide (NO) from endothelial cells. Nitric oxide plays a significant role in the vasodilation process; however, detection of NO is challenging due to its short half-life. To enable this analysis, we use three distinct 3-D printed modules: cell culture, sample injection and detection modules. The detection module follows a pillar-based Wall-Jet Electrode design, where the analyte impinges normal to the electrode surface, offering enhanced sensitivity for the analyte. To further enhance the sensitivity and selectivity for NO detection the working electrode (100 μm gold) is modified by the addition of a 27 μm gold pillar and platinum-black coated with Nafion. The use of the pillar electrode leads to three-dimensional structure protruding into the channel enhancing the sensitivity by 12.4 times in comparison to the flat electrode (resulting LOD for NO = 210 nM). The next module, the 3-D printed sample injection module, follows a simple 4-Port injection rotor design made of two separate components that when assembled can introduce a specific volume of analyte. This module not only serves as a cheaper alternative to the commercially available 4-Port injection valves, but also demonstrates the ability of volume customization and reduced dead-volume issues with the use of capillary-free connections. Comparison between the 3-D printed and a commercial 4-Port injection valve showed similar sensitivities and reproducibility for NO analysis. Lastly, the cell culture module contains electrospun polystyrene fibers with immobilized endothelial cells, resulting in 3-D scaffold for cell culture. With the incorporation of all 3 modules, we can make reproducible ATP injections (via the 3-D printed sample injection module) that can stimulate NO release from endothelial cells cultured on a fibrous insert in the cell culture module which can then be quantitated by the pillar WJE module (0.19 ± 0.03 nM/cell, n = 27, 3 inserts analyzed each day, on 9 different days). The modular approach demonstrates the facile creation of custom and modifiable fluidic components that can be assembled as needed.
| S-EPMC6433419 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Flexible and stretchable light emitting devices are driving innovation in myriad applications, such as wearable and functional electronics, displays and soft robotics. However, the development of flexible electroluminescent devices via conventional techniques remains laborious and cost-prohibitive. Here, we report a facile and easily-accessible route for fabricating a class of flexible electroluminescent devices and soft robotics via direct ink writing-based 3D printing. 3D printable ion conducting, electroluminescent and insulating dielectric inks were developed, enabling facile and on-demand creation of flexible and stretchable electroluminescent devices with good fidelity. Robust interfacial adhesion with the multilayer electroluminescent devices endowed the 3D printed devices with attractive electroluminescent performance. Integrated our 3D printed electroluminescent devices with a soft quadrupedal robot and sensing units, an artificial camouflage that can instantly self-adapt to the environment by displaying matching color was fabricated, laying an efficient framework for the next generation soft camouflages.
| S-EPMC9399151 | biostudies-literature