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Micromachines
Special Issues
New Approaches to Micropatterning
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New Approaches to Micropatterning

A special issue of Micromachines (ISSN 2072-666X). This special issue belongs to the section "D：Materials and Processing".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2019) | Viewed by 30596

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Jose Moran-Mirabal

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, McMaster University, 1280 Main Street West, Hamilton, ON L8S 4M1, Canada
Interests: biomolecular patterning; micro/nanostructured materials; nanocellulose; surface chemistry; analytical chemistry
Dr. Aline Cerf

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Laboratory for the Analysis and Architecture of Systems, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 7 avenue du Colonel Roche, 31070 Toulouse, France
Interests: biomolecular patterning; directed assembly; soft-lithography; circulating biomarkers: oncology; additive manufacturing; micro/nanotechnologies
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Micropatterning allows the targeted spatial modification of bulk, surface, or interfacial properties at the micron to nanoscale. Micropatterning approaches have been used in the past to develop functional sensing devices, smart coatings, and biomolecular patterns, among many other structured materials. These have been used, for example, in microfluidic or portable point of care devices, self-cleaning surfaces, or tissue engineering applications. The advent of new micropatterning techniques, such as those based on additive manufacturing or microfluidics, and new materials, has opened the door to the development of even more complex functional materials and devices. In this Special Issue, we focus on new developments in micropatterning approaches, such as micropatterning within microfluidic devices, multiplexed micropatterning, patterning in three-dimensional structures, as well as new chemistries and materials, and the applications derived from them. We invite original research contributions, short communications, and in-depth reviews from early career and established researchers. The goal of this Special Issue is to capture the state-of-the-art in micropatterning techniques and the wide range of applications that these technologies can be deployed in. We look forward to and welcome your contributions to this Special Issue.

Prof. Jose Moran-Mirabal
Dr. Aline Cerf
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Micromachines is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Micro/Nanopatterning
  • Biomolecular/cellular patterning
  • Micro/nanostructured materials
  • Functional materials
  • Microfluidics
  • Multiplexing
  • Sensors/devices
  • 3D architectures

Related Special Issue

Published Papers (7 papers)

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Research

14 pages, 2634 KiB  
Article
A Micropatterning Strategy to Study Nuclear Mechanotransduction in Cells
by Markville Bautista, Anthony Fernandez and Fabien Pinaud
Micromachines 2019, 10(12), 810; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi10120810 - 24 Nov 2019
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 4512
Abstract
Micropatterning techniques have been widely used in biology, particularly in studies involving cell adhesion and proliferation on different substrates. Cell micropatterning approaches are also increasingly employed as in vitro tools to investigate intracellular mechanotransduction processes. In this report, we examined how modulating cellular [...] Read more.
Micropatterning techniques have been widely used in biology, particularly in studies involving cell adhesion and proliferation on different substrates. Cell micropatterning approaches are also increasingly employed as in vitro tools to investigate intracellular mechanotransduction processes. In this report, we examined how modulating cellular shapes on two-dimensional rectangular fibronectin micropatterns of different widths influences nuclear mechanotransduction mediated by emerin, a nuclear envelope protein implicated in Emery–Dreifuss muscular dystrophy (EDMD). Fibronectin microcontact printing was tested onto glass coverslips functionalized with three different silane reagents (hexamethyldisilazane (HMDS), (3-Aminopropyl)triethoxysilane (APTES) and (3-Glycidyloxypropyl)trimethoxysilane (GPTMS)) using a vapor-phase deposition method. We observed that HMDS provides the most reliable printing surface for cell micropatterning, notably because it forms a hydrophobic organosilane monolayer that favors the retainment of surface antifouling agents on the coverslips. We showed that, under specific mechanical cues, emerin-null human skin fibroblasts display a significantly more deformed nucleus than skin fibroblasts expressing wild type emerin, indicating that emerin plays a crucial role in nuclear adaptability to mechanical stresses. We further showed that proper nuclear responses to forces involve a significant relocation of emerin from the inner nuclear envelope towards the outer nuclear envelope and the endoplasmic reticulum membrane network. Cell micropatterning by fibronectin microcontact printing directly on HMDS-treated glass represents a simple approach to apply steady-state biophysical cues to cells and study their specific mechanobiology responses in vitro. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Approaches to Micropatterning)
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12 pages, 2374 KiB  
Article
Microneedle Patterning of 3D Nonplanar Surfaces on Implantable Medical Devices Using Soft Lithography
by Sun-Joo Jang, Tejas Doshi, Jerusalem Nerayo, Alexandre Caprio, Seyedhamidreza Alaie, Jordyn Auge, James K. Min, Bobak Mosadegh and Simon Dunham
Micromachines 2019, 10(10), 705; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi10100705 - 16 Oct 2019
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 5065
Abstract
Micropatterning is often used to engineer the surface properties of objects because it allows the enhancement or modification of specific functionalities without modification of the bulk material properties. Microneedle arrays have been explored in the past for drug delivery and enhancement of tissue [...] Read more.
Micropatterning is often used to engineer the surface properties of objects because it allows the enhancement or modification of specific functionalities without modification of the bulk material properties. Microneedle arrays have been explored in the past for drug delivery and enhancement of tissue anchoring; however, conventional methods are primarily limited to thick, planar substrates. Here, we demonstrate a method for the fabrication of microneedle arrays on thin flexible polyurethane substrates. These thin-film microneedle arrays can be used to fabricate balloons and other inflatable objects. In addition, these thin-filmed microneedles can be transferred, using thermal forming processes, to more complex 3D objects on which it would otherwise be difficult to directly pattern microneedles. This function is especially useful for medical devices, which require effective tissue anchorage but are a challenging target for micropatterning due to their 3D nonplanar shape, large size, and the complexity of the required micropatterns. Ultrathin flexible thermoplastic polyurethane microneedle arrays were fabricated from a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) mold. The technique was applied onto the nonplanar surface of rapidly prototyped soft robotic implantable polyurethane devices. We found that a microneedle-patterned surface can increase the anchorage of the device to a tissue by more than twofold. In summary, our soft lithographic patterning method can rapidly and inexpensively generate thin-film microneedle surfaces that can be used to produce balloons or enhance the properties of other 3D objects and devices. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Approaches to Micropatterning)
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13 pages, 9453 KiB  
Article
Improvements of Microcontact Printing for Micropatterned Cell Growth by Contrast Enhancement
by Timm J. J. Hondrich, Oliver Deußen, Caroline Grannemann, Dominik Brinkmann and Andreas Offenhäusser
Micromachines 2019, 10(10), 659; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi10100659 - 30 Sep 2019
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 3207
Abstract
Patterned neuronal cell cultures are important tools for investigating neuronal signal integration, network function, and cell–substrate interactions. Because of the variable nature of neuronal cells, the widely used coating method of microcontact printing is in constant need of improvements and adaptations depending on [...] Read more.
Patterned neuronal cell cultures are important tools for investigating neuronal signal integration, network function, and cell–substrate interactions. Because of the variable nature of neuronal cells, the widely used coating method of microcontact printing is in constant need of improvements and adaptations depending on the pattern, cell type, and coating solutions available for a certain experimental system. In this work, we report on three approaches to modify microcontact printing on borosilicate glass surfaces, which we evaluate with contact angle measurements and by determining the quality of patterned neuronal growth. Although background toxification with manganese salt does not result in the desired pattern enhancement, a simple heat treatment of the glass substrates leads to improved background hydrophobicity and therefore neuronal patterning. Thirdly, we extended a microcontact printing process based on covalently linking the glass surface and the coating molecule via an epoxysilane. This extension is an additional hydrophobization step with dodecylamine. We demonstrate that shelf life of the silanized glass is at least 22 weeks, leading to consistently reliable neuronal patterning by microcontact printing. Thus, we compared three practical additions to microcontact printing, two of which can easily be implemented into a workflow for the investigation of patterned neuronal networks. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Approaches to Micropatterning)
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13 pages, 7273 KiB  
Article
Development of Micropatterns on Curved Surfaces Using Two-Step Ultrasonic Forming
by Jong-Han Park and Keun Park
Micromachines 2019, 10(10), 654; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi10100654 - 28 Sep 2019
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 4032
Abstract
Nanoimprint lithography (NIL) is a micro/nanoscale patterning technology on thermoplastic polymer films, and has been widely used to fabricate functional micro/nanoscale patterns. NIL was also used to develop micro/nanoscale patterns on curved surfaces by employing flexible polymer stamps or micropatterned metal molds with [...] Read more.
Nanoimprint lithography (NIL) is a micro/nanoscale patterning technology on thermoplastic polymer films, and has been widely used to fabricate functional micro/nanoscale patterns. NIL was also used to develop micro/nanoscale patterns on curved surfaces by employing flexible polymer stamps or micropatterned metal molds with macroscopic curvatures. In this study, two-step ultrasonic forming was used to develop micropatterns on a curved surface out of a flat metal stamp, by connecting ultrasonic imprinting and stretching processes. Ultrasonic imprinting was used to replicate functional micropatterns on a flat polymer film, using a flat ultrasonic horn and micropatterned metal stamps with prism and dot micropatterns. An ultrasonic stretching process was then used to form a curvature on the patterned film using a curved ultrasonic horn and a soft mold insert, to avoid damage to the pre-developed micropatterns. The ultrasonic horn was designed to have three different tip radii, and the resulting forming depth and curvature formation were investigated experimentally. As a result, three different curved surfaces containing two different micropatterns were obtained. The developed curved films containing micropatterns were then evaluated optically, and showed different optical diffusion and illumination characteristics according to the film curvature and micropattern type. These results indicate that the proposed technology can extend the functionality of conventional micropatterned products by imposing appropriate curvatures. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Approaches to Micropatterning)
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16 pages, 5028 KiB  
Article
Micro–Macro: Selective Integration of Microfeatures Inside Low-Cost Macromolds for PDMS Microfluidics Fabrication
by Edgar Jiménez-Díaz, Mariel Cano-Jorge, Diego Zamarrón-Hernández, Lucia Cabriales, Francisco Páez-Larios, Aarón Cruz-Ramírez, Genaro Vázquez-Victorio, Tatiana Fiordelisio and Mathieu Hautefeuille
Micromachines 2019, 10(9), 576; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi10090576 - 30 Aug 2019
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 3923
Abstract
Microfluidics has become a very promising technology in recent years, due to its great potential to revolutionize life-science solutions. Generic microfabrication processes have been progressively made available to academic laboratories thanks to cost-effective soft-lithography techniques and enabled important progress in applications like lab-on-chip [...] Read more.
Microfluidics has become a very promising technology in recent years, due to its great potential to revolutionize life-science solutions. Generic microfabrication processes have been progressively made available to academic laboratories thanks to cost-effective soft-lithography techniques and enabled important progress in applications like lab-on-chip platforms using rapid- prototyping. However, micron-sized features are required in most designs, especially in biomimetic cell culture platforms, imposing elevated costs of production associated with lithography and limiting the use of such devices. In most cases, however, only a small portion of the structures require high-resolution and cost may be decreased. In this work, we present a replica-molding method separating the fabrication steps of low (macro) and high (micro) resolutions and then merging the two scales in a single chip. The method consists of fabricating the largest possible area in inexpensive macromolds using simple techniques such as plastics micromilling, laser microfabrication, or even by shrinking printed polystyrene sheets. The microfeatures were made on a separated mold or onto existing macromolds using photolithography or 2-photon lithography. By limiting the expensive area to the essential, the time and cost of fabrication can be reduced. Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microfluidic chips were successfully fabricated from the constructed molds and tested to validate our micro–macro method. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Approaches to Micropatterning)
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10 pages, 4846 KiB  
Article
Femtosecond Laser Micro-/nano-texturing of Stainless Steels for Surface Property Control
by Tatsuhiko Aizawa, Tadahiko Inohara and Kenji Wasa
Micromachines 2019, 10(8), 512; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi10080512 - 31 Jul 2019
Cited by 11 | Viewed by 2872
Abstract
Surface geometry has had an influence on the surface property, in addition to the intrinsic surface energy, of materials. Many physical surface modification methods had been proposed to control the solid surface geometry for modification of surface properties. Recently, short-pulse lasers were utilized [...] Read more.
Surface geometry has had an influence on the surface property, in addition to the intrinsic surface energy, of materials. Many physical surface modification methods had been proposed to control the solid surface geometry for modification of surface properties. Recently, short-pulse lasers were utilized to perform nano-texturing onto metallic and polymer substrates for the improvement of surface properties. Most of the papers reported that the hydrophilic metallic surface was modified to have a higher contact angle than 120–150°. Little studies explained the relationship between surface geometry and surface properties. In the present study, the laser micro-/nano-texturing was developed to describe this surface-geometric effect on the static contact angles for pure water. Micropatterns with multi spatial frequencies are designed and synthesized into a microtexture. This tailored microtexture was utilized to prepare for computer aided machining (CAM) data to control the femtosecond laser beams. The nano-length ripples by laser induced periodic surface structuring (LIPSS) supposed onto this microtexture to form the micro-/nano-texture on the AISI304 substrate surface. Computational geometry was employed to describe this geometric profile. The fractal dimension became nearly constant by 2.26 and insensitive to increase of static contact angle (θ) for θ > 150°. Under this defined self-similarity, the micro-/nano-textured surface state was controlled to be super-hydrophobic by increasing the ratio of the highest spatial frequency in microtextures to the lowest one. This controllability of surface property on the stainless steels was supported by tailoring the wavelength and pitch of microtextures. Exposure testing was also used to evaluate the engineering durability of this micro-/nano-textured surface. Little change of the measured fractal dimension during the testing proved that this physically modified AISI304 surface had sufficient stability for its long-term usage in air. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Approaches to Micropatterning)
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10 pages, 2711 KiB  
Article
Low-Cost, Accessible Fabrication Methods for Microfluidics Research in Low-Resource Settings
by Hoang-Tuan Nguyen, Ha Thach, Emmanuel Roy, Khon Huynh and Cecile Mong-Tu Perrault
Micromachines 2018, 9(9), 461; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi9090461 - 12 Sep 2018
Cited by 40 | Viewed by 6269
Abstract
Microfluidics are expected to revolutionize the healthcare industry especially in developing countries since it would bring portable, easy-to-use, self-contained diagnostic devices to places with limited access to healthcare. To date, however, microfluidics has not yet been able to live up to these expectations. [...] Read more.
Microfluidics are expected to revolutionize the healthcare industry especially in developing countries since it would bring portable, easy-to-use, self-contained diagnostic devices to places with limited access to healthcare. To date, however, microfluidics has not yet been able to live up to these expectations. One non-negligible factor can be attributed to inaccessible prototyping methods for researchers in low-resource settings who are unable to afford expensive equipment and/or obtain critical reagents and, therefore, unable to engage and contribute to microfluidics research. In this paper, we present methods to create microfluidic devices that reduce initial costs from hundreds of thousands of dollars to about $6000 by using readily accessible consumables and inexpensive equipment. By including the scientific community most embedded and aware of the requirements of healthcare in developing countries, microfluidics will be able to increase its reach in the research community and be better informed to provide relevant solutions to global healthcare challenges. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Approaches to Micropatterning)
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