Laser-assisted fabrication of highly viscous alginate microsphere

Encapsulated microspheres have been widely used in various biomedical applications. However, fabrication of encapsulated microspheres from highly viscous materials has always been a manufacturing challenge. The objective of this study is to explore a novel metallic foil-assisted laser-induced forward transfer (LIFT), a laser-assisted fabrication technique, to make encapsulated microspheres using high sodium alginate concentration solutions. The proposed four-layer approach includes a quartz disk, a sacrificial and adhesive layer, a metallic foil, and a transferred suspension layer. It is found that the proposed four-layer modified LIFT approach provides a promising fabrication technology for making of bead-encapsulated microspheres from highly viscous solutions. During the process, the microsphere only can be formed if the direct-writing height is larger than the critical direct-writing height; otherwise, tail structured droplets are formed; and the encapsulated microsphere diameter linearly increases with the laser fluence and decreases with the sodium alginate concentration.