Fabricating Shaped Microfibers with Inertial Microfluidics

Abstract

A process for the fabrication of shaped microfibers is developed that combines software-enabled inertial microfluidics and photopolymerization. Flow deformations caused by flow around pillars sculpt the shape of a stream of reactive solution, which is photopolymerized into a fiber. The cross-sectional shapes and selective surface functionalization of the fibers compare well with the predicted shapes of the sculpted streams.