Laser Processing of Natural Biomaterials

Natural biomaterials have been extensively employed in biomedical applications because of their superior biocompatibility and biodegradability. Among the large family of techniques to process natural biomaterials, laser techniques have been rapidly developed to fabricate biomimetic artificial organs, tissue engineering scaffolds, and other biomedical constructs. Compared to other techniques, laser processing allows more precise control over the geometry and is able to fabricate smaller features with minimal debris generated. The laser processing techniques are generally grouped by three categories: polymerization, ablation, and activation. This chapter introduces several widely used natural biomaterials, including collagen, agarose, hyaluronic acid, and Matrigel TMTM as well as the recent development in laser processing techniques of those natural biomaterials.Department of Electrical Engineerin