Publications by authors named "Martin P De Beer"
Article Synopsis
- Microfluidic devices are traditionally made using complex and costly processes like photolithography, but additive manufacturing (AM) offers simpler, cheaper alternatives.
- Volumetric stereolithography (vSLA) is a new AM technique that allows for rapid, layer-by-layer production of microfluidic channels by manipulating light wavelengths for polymerization control.
- Using vSLA, researchers can create channels in various shapes and sizes in under 10 minutes, suggesting a potential shift in how microfluidic devices are fabricated, which could increase accessibility for a wider range of users.
Volumetric additive manufacturing (VAM) enables rapid printing into a wide range of materials, offering significant advantages over other printing technologies, with a lack of inherent layering of particular note. However, VAM suffers from striations, similar in appearance to layers, and similarly limiting applications due to mechanical and refractive index inhomogeneity, surface roughness, etc. We hypothesize that these striations are caused by a self-written waveguide effect, driven by the gelation material nonlinearity upon which VAM relies, and that they are not a direct recording of non-uniform patterning beams.
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- A new technique for creating variable-height glass microchannels allows for size-based passive trapping of microparticles, improving biological analysis.
- The channels can vary from 1 μm to over 20 μm in height, effectively separating particles with minimal size differences (less than 100 nm) over a distance of about 6 cm.
- This method demonstrated the ability to differentiate between healthy and chemically modified red blood cells based on their deformability, indicating its potential use in low-cost and efficient biological assays.
Contemporary, layer-wise additive manufacturing approaches afford sluggish object fabrication rates and often yield parts with ridged surfaces; in contrast, continuous stereolithographic printing overcomes the layer-wise operation of conventional devices, greatly increasing achievable print speeds and generating objects with smooth surfaces. We demonstrate a novel method for rapid and continuous stereolithographic additive manufacturing by using two-color irradiation of (meth)acrylate resin formulations containing complementary photoinitiator and photoinhibitor species. In this approach, photopatterned polymerization inhibition volumes generated by irradiation at one wavelength spatially confine the region photopolymerized by a second concurrent irradiation wavelength.
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