polymer nanostructuring by two photon absorption

Two-photon polymerization (2PP) is an innovative technology that in recent years showed a tremendous potential for three-dimensional structuring of photopolymers at the submicron scale. It is based on the nonlinear absorption of ultrashort laser pulses in transparent photosensitive materials. 2PP has been so far exploited in various fields, including photonics, microfluidics, regenerative medicine and MEMS prototyping. The versatility of this technology relies also on the photomaterials; indeed, polymers are easy to process, low cost and they allow the tailoring of their chemical and mechanical properties. 2PP nanotechnology is here exploited to produce micro and nanostructures that can be easily customized both in the geometry and in polymer functionalization. In particular, atomic force microscopy tips are fabricated on top of commercial cantilevers to demonstrate the technology feasibility and customizability. Moreover nanoporous membranes that can be fabricated by 2PP as a single custom product or as a mould for mass production through replica moulding are realized to evaluate the scalability of the fabrication process

Third Strategy in Tissue Engineering: Tissue Spheroids Encaged into Microscaffolds

Tissue engineering is a biomedical technology of artificial development of living three-dimensional human tissues and organs. Tissue engineering is based on two distinct premises. First more conventional approach uses solid biodegradable porous scaffolds as a temporal supporting framework for living cells attachment and sequential formation of three-dimensional tissue whereas second emerging approach is a solid scaffold-free directed tissue self-assembly with using tissue spheroids or microtissues as building blocks. In this paper novel hybrid approach or so-called third strategy in tissue engineering which combines advantages of first and second approaches is presented. The novel concept of lockyballs or tissue spheroids encaged into interlockable synthetic microscaffolds is described.Published versio