Rapid laser ablation-based fabrication of high-density polymer microwell arrays for high-throughput cellular studies.

ABSTRACT: Polymer-based microwell platforms have garnered much interest due to their usefulness in culturing and analyzing small quantities of biological cells and spheroids. Existing methods for fabricating polymer microwell arrays involve complex fabrication processes and/or are limited in their ability to create dense arrays of very small (<50 μm in diameter) microwells. Here, we present a simple and rapid technique for fabricating high-density arrays of microwells ranging from 20 to 160 μm in diameter on a variety of polymer substrates. In this approach, a polymer surface is ablated using a CO₂ laser that is rastered over a stainless steel mesh, which serves as a shadow mask. A theoretical laser-polymer interaction model was developed for predicting the microwell volume based on the s

SUBMITTER: Dixit DD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11880749 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature