High-Resolution 3D Printing of Stretchable Hydrogel Structures Using Optical Projection Lithography (original) (raw)

Abstract

Double Network (DN) hydrogels, with their unique combination of mechanical strength and toughness, have emerged as promising materials for soft robotics and tissue engineering. In the past decade, significant effort has been devoted to synthesizing DN hydrogels with high stretchability and toughness; however, shaping the DN hydrogels into complex and often necessary user-defined two-dimensional (2D) and three dimensional (3D) geometries remains a fabrication challenge. Here, we report a new fabrication method based on optical projection lithography to print DN hydrogels into customizable 2D and 3D structures within minutes. DN gel were printed by first photo-crosslinking a single network structure via spatially modulated light patterns followed by immersing the printed structure in a calcium bath to induce ionic crosslinking.