Guangbin Shao

Artificial lacrimal bypass tube (LBT) implantation has been widely used for treating proximal lacrimal drainage obstruction. However, its long‐term clinical success is still constrained by the frequent tube dislodgement due to the mismatch mechanical properties to surrounding soft tissue and poor tissue fusion along its smooth surface. Aiming to tackle this challenge, here a method of 3D printing LBT is reported that comprises three key features: 1) mechanical adaptability to match with the characteristics of surrounding soft tissue, 2) tailorable surface porosity to promote tissue binding, and 3) customization to accommodate individual patient's anatomies. Using hydrogel‐based biocompatible ink, LBTs are 3D printed that are initially rigid (compressive Young's moduli E : ≈1.6 GPa) for the ease of surgical insertion but become compliant ( E : 0.16–3.36 MPa) after implantation to better match with the surrounding tissue. The inherent manufacturing flexibility of 3D printing enables integration of the LBT and porous shell to prompt tissue infusion to ensure its mechanical integrity. Ultimately, in vivo intramuscular and orthotopic implantation studies demonstrate that the LBTs exhibit excellent tolerance in rabbits with minimal inflammation observed, and the porous shells help to significantly reduce the dislocation rate from 80% to 13.3%.

The capability of fabricating magnetically active 3D microstructures is crucial for miniaturization of microrobots or microactuators. While additive manufacturing using magnetic nanoparticle‐infused polymer resin offers the highly desirable precision and flexibility, the difficulty in handling resin with higher solid loading of magnetic nanoparticles needed to maximize the magnetic actuation forces remains to be the main obstacle. The increased viscosity of the magnetic resin not only significantly reduces the fabrication speed, but also makes the process vulnerable to the precipitation of the suspended magnetic nanoparticles. Herein, a comprehensive solution that synergizes the optimization of magnetic photopolymerizable resin and the high‐speed 3D printing using microcontinuous liquid interface production (μCLIP) process is reported. An optimized magnetic photopolymerizable resin with 30 wt% solid loading of Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles is well dispersed over 72 h. Process characteristics of the magnetic photopolymerizable resins with variation in the solid loading of magnetic nanoparticles are investigated experimentally. The capability of 3D printing centimeter‐size samples with sub‐75 μm fine features using high solid loading (30 wt%) is also demonstrated. The increased printing speed using μCLIP significantly reduces the fabrication time to the order of minutes to hours, making the process more robust against the precipitation of the magnetic particles.

Synergizing grayscale photopolymerization and meniscus coating processes, rapid 3D printing of optical lenses is reported previously using projection microstereolithography (PµSL) process. Despite its 14 000‐fold‐improved printing speed over the femtosecond 3D printing process, PµSL still consumes significant amount of the fabrication time for precise recoating 5 µm thick fresh resin layers. At the reported speed of 24.54 mm³ h⁻¹, 3D printing of the millimeter‐size lenses still takes hours. To further improve the printing speed, the microcontinuous liquid interface production process is implemented to eliminate the time‐consuming resin recoating step. However, the micrometer‐size pores in the Teflon membrane needed for oxygen transportation are found to completely spoil the surface smoothness. The use of polydimethylsiloxane thin film possessing much refined nanoscopic porosities as the functional substitute of Teflon membrane is reported to significantly reduce the surface roughness to 13.7 nm. 3D printing of 3 mm high aspherical lens in ≈2 min at a 200‐fold‐improved speed at 4.85 × 10³ mm³ h⁻¹ is demonstrated. The 3D printed aspherical lens has the demonstrated imaging resolution of 3.10 µm. This work represents a significant step in tackling the speed‐accuracy trade‐off of 3D printing process and thus enables rapid fabrication of customized optical components.

Magnetic-driven micro-robotic devices have shown promising potential in enabling applications in micromanipulation, biosensing, targeted drug delivery, and minimally invasive surgery. However, the fabrication of miniaturized magnetic structures with complex geometries has remained the major technical obstacle. In this study, we report the development of a new magnetically-active photopolymerizable resin comprises poly (ethylene glycol) diacrylate monomer, Fe₃O₄ magnetic nanoparticles, photoinitiator, and other functional additives. Micro-continuous liquid interface production (micro-CLIP) 3D printing process was employed to realize high-resolution and high-speed fabrication of complex structures. The key characteristic properties of resin along with the matching process conditions were investigated experimentally, which allows for establishing the set of optimal fabrication conditions in fabricating magnetic microactuators towards potential applications.

We developed transmission diffraction grating-based spectroscopic single-molecule localization microscopy (sSMLM) to collect the spatial and spectral information of single-molecule blinking events concurrently. We characterized the spectral heterogeneities of multiple far-red emitting dyes in a high-throughput manner using sSMLM. We also investigated the influence of spectral dispersion on the single-molecule identification performance of fluorophores with large spectral overlapping. The careful tuning of spectral dispersion in grating-based sSMLM permitted simultaneous three-color super-resolution imaging in fixed cells with a single objective lens at a relatively low photon budget. Our sSMLM has a compact optical design and can be integrated with conventional localization microscopy to provide add-on spectroscopic analysis capability.

It is of great interest and big challenge to control the collective behaviors of nanomotors to mimic the aggregation/separation behavior of biological systems. Here, a light‐acoustic combined method is proposed to control the aggregation/separation of artificial nanomotors. It is shown that nanomotors aggregate at the pressure node in acoustic field and afterward present a collective “firework” separation behavior induced by light irradiation. The collective behavior is found to be applicable for metallic materials and polymers even different light wavelengths are used. Physical insights on the collective firework behavior resulting from the change of acoustic streaming caused by optical force are provided. It is found that diffusion velocity and diffusion region of cluster can be controlled by adjusting light intensity and acoustic excitation voltage, and irradiation direction, respectively. This harmless, controllable, and widely applicable method provides new possibilities for groups of nanomachines, drug release, and cargo transport in nanomedicine and nanosensors.