Generation of 3D Microparticles in Microchannels with Non-rectangular Cross Sections
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Original Article
Generation of 3D Microparticles in Microchannels with Non-rectangular Cross Sections Sung Min Nam1,†, Kibeom Kim2,†, Il-Suk Kang3, Wook Park
2,
* & Wonhee Lee
1,4,
*
Received: 10 March, 2019 / Accepted: 25 June, 2019 / Published online: 26 July, 2019 ⒸThe Korean BioChip Society and Springer 2019
Abstract Flow lithography in a conventional rectangular microchannel is limited to fabrication of particles for which only the shapes of top perimeters are controlled. We present a flow lithography technique for fabrication of microparticles of diverse 3D shapes and multiple layers using non-rectangular microchannels with designed cross sections that allow the creation of complex shapes and diverse cross- sectional shapes. Variations in cross-sectional shape allow high-throughput, on-demand production of microparticles in unconventional shapes such as tetrahedrons and pyramids. Multilayered 3D particles were generated in an enlarging triangular channel combined with on-chip PDMS valves, which allow particle alignment and fluid exchange. These 3D microparticles are expected to further expand the wide variety of applications of microparticles, especially in drug delivery and tissue engineering fields. Keywords: Flow lithography, Microparticle, Microfabrication
Introduction As the utilization of functional polymer particles has 1 Graduate School of Nanoscience and Technology, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon 34141, Republic of Korea 2 Department of Electronic Engineering, Institute for Wearable Convergence Electronics, Kyung Hee University, 1732, Deogyeongdaero, Giheung, Yongin 17104, Republic of Korea 3 National Nanofab Center, KAIST, Daejeon 34141, Republic of Korea 4 Department of Physics, KAIST, Daejeon 34141, Republic of Korea † These authors contrilbuted equally. *Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to W. Park ( [email protected]) and W. Lee ( [email protected])
increased in the past century, many methods for manufacturing and applications of various types of polymeric microparticles have been newly developed1–8. Polymeric particles as new functional materials have grown in demand for various fields including, but not limited to, tissue engineering9–12 and drug delivery13– 18 . The manufacturing methods of polymeric particles have also been studied extensively such as microfluidic-based processes, photolithography, emulsification, and sol-gel-based processes3,4,19–22. In particular, widely used methods including droplet-generation, flow lithography, and particle assembly were based on microfluidic-based processes. Droplet generation is one of the representative microfluidic-based production techniques for polymeric microparticles. It provides highly uniform size distribution and high throughput23. However, the shape of the generated particles has been limited to spheres and simple variations from the sphere such as conjoined spherical particles or pressed spherical particles1,24–26. On the other hand, various techniques for product
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