Fluidic Microprocessors for Material Assembly

我们提出了旨在创建，表征和利用有组织材料的微流体方法。具有与其功能密切相关的空间不均匀组成的软材料在自然界中很常见，并且通常具有长度范围从数百纳米到几毫米的分层结构。目前可用的用于产生具有有组织的微结构的平面软材料的手段以两种方式模仿自然的能力：通过最初制备构建块并随后沿沿着流体界面组装它们，以及通过平面微制造。这些策略需要一系列的处理步骤，往往缺乏时空控制。 我们提出了一步制备的平面和三维水凝胶与时空变化的组合物，这是由一个按比例扩大的微流体装置。所获得的镶嵌水凝胶将允许胶体或大分子有效载荷在相同凝胶基质内的局部储存或时间释放。不同凝胶的镶嵌将导致镶嵌刚度和扩散率模式。我们的策略提供了平面软材料的形成与精确的时空控制的材料成分。我们设想我们的方法最终能够为各种应用（包括细胞（共）培养和再生医学）实现软材料和设备的流入式生产。

We propose microfluidic approaches that aim at creating, characterizing and utilizing organized materials. Soft materials with a spatially non-uniform composition that is closely linked to their function are common in nature and often possess a hierarchical architecture with length scales ranging from hundreds of nanometers to several millimetres. Currently available means for creating planar soft materials with an organized microstructure mimic nature's ability in two ways: by initially preparing building blocks and subsequently assembling them along fluid interfaces, and by planar microfabrication. These strategies necessitate a sequence of processing steps and often lack spatiotemporal control. We propose the one-step preparation of planar and three-dimensional hydrogels with a spatiotemporally varying composition that is enabled by a scaled-out microfluidic device. The obtained mosaic hydrogels will allow for the local storage or the time-release of a colloidal or macromolecular payload within the same gel matrix. Tessellations of different gels will lead to mosaic stiffness and diffusivity patterns. Our strategy offers the formation of planar soft materials with precise spatiotemporal control over the material composition. We envision our approach to ultimately enable the in-flow production of soft materials and devices for a variety of applications including cell (co-)culture and regenerative medicine.