Gigantic vortical differential scattering as a monochromatic probe for multiscale chiral structures.

Spin angular momentum of light is vital to investigate enantiomers characterized by circular dichroism (CD), widely adopted in biology, chemistry, and material science. However, to discriminate chiral materials with multiscale features, CD spectroscopy normally requires wavelength-swept laser sources as well as wavelength-specific optical accessories. Here, we experimentally demonstrate an orbital-angular-momentum-assisted approach to yield chiroptical signals with monochromatic light. The gigantic vortical differential scattering (VDS) of ∼120% is achieved on intrinsically chiral microstructures fabricated by femtosecond laser. The VDS measurements can robustly generate chiroptical properties on microstructures with varying geometric features (e.g., diameters and helical pitches) and detect chiral molecules with high sensitivity. This VDS scheme lays a paradigm-shift pavement toward efficiently chiroptical discrimination of multiscale chiral structures with photonic orbital angular momentum. It simplifies and complements the conventional CD spectroscopy, opening possibilities for measuring weak optical chirality, especially on mesoscale chiral architectures and macromolecules.

Controllable double-helical microstructures by photonic orbital angular momentum for chiroptical response.

Three-dimensional helical microstructures are abundant in nature and can be applied as chiral metamaterials for advanced nanophotonics. Here we report a flexible method to fabricate double-helical microstructures with single exposure by recording the chirality of incident optical vortices. Two coaxial optical vortices can interfere to generate a helical optical field, confirmed by the numerical simulation. The diameters of double-helical microstructures can be tailored by the magnitude of topological charges. This fast manufacturing strategy provides the opportunity to efficiently yield helical microstructures. Finally, the chirality of double-helical microstructures can be reversibly read by optical vortices, demonstrating a strong chiroptical response.

Magnetically driven rotary microfilter fabricated by two-photon polymerization for multimode filtering of particles.

In this Letter, a magnetically driven rotary microfilter that enables switching the modes of filtering and passing is fabricated in microfluidic devices via two-photon polymerization using a femtosecond laser for selective filtering of particles. The high-quality integration of a microfilter is ensured by accurately formulating the magnetic photoresist and optimizing the processing parameters. By changing the direction of the external magnetic field, the fabricated microfilter can be remotely manipulated to rotate by desired angles, thereby achieving the "filtering" or "passing" mode on demand. Taking advantage of this property, the magnetically rotary microfilter realizes multi-mode filtering functions such as capturing 8 µm particles/passing the 2.5 µm particles and passing both particles. More importantly, the responsive characteristic increases the reusability of the microchip. The lab-on-chip devices integrated with remotely rotary microfilters by the femtosecond laser two-photon polymerization with the functional photoresist will offer extensive applications in chemical and biological studies.

Hybrid femtosecond laser fabrication of a size-tunable microtrap chip with a high-trapping retention rate.

In this Letter, we propose a new (to the best of our knowledge), promising concept of a hybrid femtosecond (fs) laser processing method composed of single-point scanning and holographic light modulation fabrication for manufacturing a tunable-size microtrap chip. The hybrid method not only ensures key microfluidic device precision but also greatly improves the fabrication speed. By using a new asymmetry-bracket-shaped microtrap design with a mechanical strain stretching method, real-time size-tunable trapping is obtained, and a 100% particle trapping retention is realized, ignoring the flow fluctuation. Finally, the microtrap array is successfully applied to trap single yeast cells and hold them for $\sim{10}\;{\rm h}$∼10h without escaping.

Self-assembled micropillars fabricated by holographic femtosecond multi-foci beams forin situ trapping of microparticles.

Dynamic self-assembly of micropillars has found wide applications in targeted trapping, micro-crystallization and plasmonic sensing. Yet the efficient fabrication of micropillars array with high flexibility still remains a grand challenge. In this Letter, holographic femtosecond laser multi-foci beams (fs-MFBs) based on a spatial light modulator (SLM) is adopted to efficiently create micropillars array with controllable geometry and spatial distribution by predesigning the computer-generated holograms (CGHs). Based on these micropillars array, diverse hierarchical assemblies are formed under the evaporation-induced capillary force. Moreover, taking advantage of the excellent flexibility and controllability of fs-MFBs, on-demand one-bead-to-one-trap of targeted microspheres at arbitrary position is demonstrated with unprecedentedly high capture efficiency, unfolding their potential applications in the fields of microfluidics and biomedical engineering.

Efficient fabrication of a high-aspect-ratio AFM tip by one-step exposure of a long focal depth holographic femtosecond axilens beam.

In this Letter, we demonstrate a laser fabrication strategy that uses the long focal depth femtosecond axilens laser beam to manufacture the high-aspect-ratio (HAR) micropillars and atomic force microscopy (AFM) probes by one-step exposure. The long depth of focus is generated by modulating laser beam focused at different positions. By adjusting the exposure height, the morphology of HAR micropillars can be tuned flexibly, and the micropillar with an ultra-high aspect ratio (diameter of 1.5 µm, height of 102 µm, ${\rm AR}={70}$AR=70) can be fabricated within 10 ms which is a great challenge for other processing methods to obtain such a HAR microstructure in such a short time. In addition, the HAR micropillar is fabricated onto a cantilever to form the AFM probe. The homemade probe shows fine imaging quality. This method greatly improves the processing efficiency while ensuring the fabrication resolution which provides a powerful method for processing HAR microstructures.

Holographic femtosecond laser integration of microtube arrays inside a hollow needle as a lab-in-a-needle device.

In this Letter, the femtosecond laser holographic two-photon polymerization (HTPP) method is adopted to rapidly realize a unique lab-in-a-needle (LIN) device by manufacturing microtube arrays inside a needle. The HTPP method is to modulate a Gaussian beam into a ring Bessel beam by a spatial light modulator (SLM) loaded with a Bessel hologram, and can fabricate microtube arrays with controllable inside diameter (1-10 µm) and designable patterns on such complex three-dimensional (3D) substrates by optimizing experimental parameters. A single LIN device can be processed by this method in about 4 min, which is not possible with traditional micronano technology and is much faster than the traditional two-photon polymerization method (at least several hours). To further demonstrate the functionality of this LIN device, a particle separation experiment is carried out. For the purpose of achieving greater functionality and integration of the on-chip system, this HTPP method provides a powerful processing method for integrating 3D functional microstructures on 3D nonplanar substrates.

High-aspect-ratio microtubes with variable diameter and uniform wall thickness by compressing Bessel hologram phase depth.

In this Letter, we present a light field regulation method to form a ring light field with controllable density distribution. This method is to compress the phase modulation depth of Bessel holograms superimposed with blazed gratings and tune the diffraction efficiency of the superimposed holograms by gray scale. The experimental light field generated by the superimposed holograms is consistent with the simulation results. By designing the phase modulation depth of the superimposed holograms with different parameters, ring light fields with suitable intensity distribution are obtained, and the fabrication of ring microstructure with uniform wall thickness is realized. Finally, as a special case of processing, dynamic holographic processing of high-aspect-ratio microtubes with variable diameter and uniform wall thickness is demonstrated.

Generation of colorful Airy beams and Airy imaging of letters via two-photon processed cubic phase plates.

In this Letter, we demonstrate the observation of colorful Airy beams and Airy imaging of letters, which we called Airy letters here, generated through the continuous cubic phase microplate (CCPP) elaborately fabricated by femtosecond laser two-photon processing. The fabricated CCPP with both micro size (60 µm×60 µm×1.1 µm) and continuous variation of phase shows a good agreement with the designed CCPP. Chromatic Airy beams and Airy letters "USTC" are experimentally generated via the CCPP illuminated by white light. In addition, superior properties of Airy letters are explored, demonstrating that the Airy letters inherit the nondiffraction, self-healing, and transverse acceleration characteristics of Airy beams. Our work paves the way toward integrated optics, light separation, optical imaging, and defective information recovery.

Dimension-Controllable Microtube Arrays by Dynamic Holographic Processing as 3D Yeast Culture Scaffolds for Asymmetrical Growth Regulation.

Transparent microtubes can function as unique cell culture scaffolds, because the tubular 3D microenvironment they provide is very similar to the narrow space of capillaries in vivo. However, how to realize the fabrication of microtube-arrays with variable cross-section dynamically remains challenging. Here, a dynamic holographic processing method for producing high aspect ratio (≈20) microtubes with tunable outside diameter (6-16 µm) and inside diameter (1-10 µm) as yeast culture scaffolds is reported. A ring-structure Bessel beam is modulated from a typical Gaussian-distributed femtosecond laser beam by a spatial light modulator. By combining the axial scanning of the focused beam and the dynamic display of holograms, dimension-controllable microtube arrays (straight, conical, and drum-shape) are rapidly produced by two-photon polymerization. The outside and inside diameters, tube heights, and spatial arrangements are readily tuned by loading different computer-generated holograms and changing the processing parameters. The transparent microtube array as a nontrivial tool for capturing and culturing the budding yeasts reveals the significant effect of tube diameter on budding characteristics. In particular, the conical tube with the inside diameter varying from 5 to 10 µm has remarkable asymmetrical regulation on the growth trend of captured yeasts.

High efficiency fabrication of complex microtube arrays by scanning focused femtosecond laser Bessel beam for trapping/releasing biological cells.

In this paper, we present a focused femtosecond laser Bessel beam scanning technique for the rapid fabrication of large-area 3D complex microtube arrays. The femtosecond laser beam is converted into several Bessel beams by two-dimensional phase modulation using a spatial light modulator. By scanning the focused Bessel beam along a designed route, microtubes with variable size and flexible geometry are rapidly fabricated by two-photon polymerization. The fabrication time is reduced by two orders of magnitude in comparison with conventional point-to-point scanning. Moreover, we construct an effective microoperating system for single cell manipulation using microtube arrays, and demonstrate its use in the capture, transfer, and release of embryonic fibroblast mouse cells as well as human breast cancer cells. The new fabrication strategy provides a novel method for the rapid fabrication of functional devices using a flexibly tailored laser beam.

Continuous cubic phase microplates for generating high-quality Airy beams with strong deflection.

Owing to the distinguishing properties of nondiffraction, self-healing, and transverse acceleration, Airy beams have attracted much attention in the past decade. To date, a simple approach for exquisitely fabricating cubic phase plates with both continuous variation of phase and micro size still remains challenging, which limits the generation of high-quality Airy beams for integrated micro-optics. Here, we report the elaborate design and fabrication of a continuous cubic phase microplate (CCPP) for generating high-quality Airy beams in micrometer scale. A CCPP with a precise size (60 µm×60 µm×1.1 µm) is fabricated by femtosecond laser direct writing, exhibiting a high optical efficiency (∼79%). The high-quality Airy beam generated via the CCPP demonstrates an unprecedentedly strong deflection (∼4.2 µm within a 90 µm propagation distance) as well as being diffraction-free. Our research on the design and fabrication of miniature Airy phase plates paves the way toward high-performance integrated optics, optical micromanipulation, and optical imaging.

Two-photon polymerization of microstructures by a non-diffraction multifoci pattern generated from a superposed Bessel beam.

In this Letter, superposed Bessel beams (SBBs) are realized by alternatively imprinting holograms of opposite-order Bessel beams along the radial direction on a spatial light modulator. The propagation invariance and non-rotation properties of SBBs are theoretically predicted and experimentally demonstrated. The focusing property of SBBs with a high numerical aperture (NA) objective is investigated with the Debye vectorial diffraction theory. Near the focal plane, a circularly distributed multiple foci pattern is achieved. The multiple foci generated from SBBs are adopted in a two-photon fabrication system, and micropattern fabrication by a single exposure is demonstrated. Facile fabrication of three-dimensional microstructures with SBBs is realized by dynamically controlling the number of focal spots, and the diameter and rotation of the focal pattern.

Microclaw Array Fabricated by Single Exposure of Femtosecond Airy Beam and Self-Assembly for Regulating Cell Migratory Plasticity.

The highly aligned extracellular matrix of metastatic breast cancer cells is considered to be the "highway" of cancer invasion, which strongly promotes the directional migration of cancer cells to break through the basement membrane. However, how the reorganized extracellular matrix regulates cancer cell migration remains unknown. Here, a single exposure of a femtosecond Airy beam followed by a capillary-assisted self-assembly process was used to fabricate a microclaw-array, which was used to mimic the highly oriented extracellular matrix of tumor cells and the pores in the matrix or basement membrane during cell invasion. Through the experiment, we found that metastatic breast cancer MDA-MB-231 cells and normal breast epithelial MCF-10A cells exhibit three major migration phenotypes on microclaw-array assembled with different lateral spacings: guidance, impasse, and penetration, whereas guided and penetrating migration are almost completely arrested in noninvasive MCF-7 cells. In addition, different mammary breast epithelial cells differ in their ability to spontaneously perceive and respond to the topology of the extracellular matrix at the subcellular and molecular levels, which ultimately affects the cell migratory phenotype and pathfinding. Altogether, we fabricated a microclaw-array as a flexible and high-throughput tool to mimic the extracellular matrix during invasion to study the migratory plasticity of cancer cells.

Controlled growth of a single carbon nanotube on an AFM probe.

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) can be used as atomic force microscopy (AFM) tips for high-resolution scanning due to their small diameter, high aspect ratio and outstanding wear resistance. However, previous approaches for fabricating CNT probes are complex and poorly controlled. In this paper, we introduce a simple method to selectively fabricate a single CNT on an AFM tip by controlling the trigger threshold to adjust the amount of growth solution attached to the tip. The yield rate is over 93%. The resulting CNT probes are suitable in length, without the need for a subsequent cutting process. We used the CNT probe to scan the complex nanostructure with a high aspect ratio, thereby solving the long-lasting problem of mapping complex nanostructures.

Quasi-phase-matching-division multiplexing holography in a three-dimensional nonlinear photonic crystal.

Nonlinear holography has recently emerged as a novel tool to reconstruct the encoded information at a new wavelength, which has important applications in optical display and optical encryption. However, this scheme still struggles with low conversion efficiency and ineffective multiplexing. In this work, we demonstrate a quasi-phase-matching (QPM) -division multiplexing holography in a three-dimensional (3D) nonlinear photonic crystal (NPC). 3D NPC works as a nonlinear hologram, in which multiple images are distributed into different Ewald spheres in reciprocal space. The reciprocal vectors locating in a given Ewald sphere are capable of fulfilling the complete QPM conditions for the high-efficiency reconstruction of the target image at the second-harmonic (SH) wave. One can easily switch the reconstructed SH images by changing the QPM condition. The multiplexing capacity is scalable with the period number of 3D NPC. Our work provides a promising strategy to achieve highly efficient nonlinear multiplexing holography for high-security and high-density storage of optical information.

Environmentally Adaptive Shape-Morphing Microrobots for Localized Cancer Cell Treatment.

Microrobots have attracted considerable attention due to their extensive applications in microobject manipulation and targeted drug delivery. To realize more complex micro-/nanocargo manipulation (e.g., encapsulation and release) in biological applications, it is highly desirable to endow microrobots with a shape-morphing adaptation to dynamic environments. Here, environmentally adaptive shape-morphing microrobots (SMMRs) have been developed by programmatically encoding different expansion rates in a pH-responsive hydrogel. Due to a combination with magnetic propulsion, a shape-morphing microcrab (SMMC) is able to perform targeted microparticle delivery, including gripping, transporting, and releasing by "opening-closing" of a claw. As a proof-of-concept demonstration, a shape-morphing microfish (SMMF) is designed to encapsulate a drug (doxorubicin (DOX)) by closing its mouth in phosphate-buffered saline (PBS, pH ∼ 7.4) and release the drug by opening its mouth in a slightly acidic solution (pH < 7). Furthermore, localized HeLa cell treatment in an artificial vascular network is realized by "opening-closing" of the SMMF mouth. With the continuous optimization of size, motion control, and imaging technology, these magnetic SMMRs will provide ideal platforms for complex microcargo operations and on-demand drug release.

Uniaxial Stretching of Cell-Laden Microfibers for Promoting C2C12 Myoblasts Alignment and Myofibers Formation.

Fiber-shaped cellular constructs have attracted increasing attention in the regeneration of blood vessels, nerve networks, and skeletal myofibers. Nevertheless, the generation of functional fiber-shaped cellular constructs suffers from limited appropriate microfiber-based fabrication approaches and the maintenance of regenerated tissue functions. Herein, we demonstrate a silicone-tube-based coagulant bath free method to fabricate tens of centimeters long cell-laden microfibers using single UV exposure without pretreatment of nozzles or microchannels. By modulating the exposure time, the gelatin methacrylate microfibers with tissue-like microstructures and mechanical properties are obtained. Then, a culture system integrated with a pillar well-array based stretching device is used to apply uniaxial stretching with various strain ratios in situ to cell-laden microfibers in a 60 mm petri dish. Cells with improved spreading, elongation, and alignment are obtained under uniaxial stretching. Moreover, the promotional effects of uniaxial stretching on the differentiation of C2C12 myoblasts, the formation, and contractility of myofibers become more pronounced with increasing strain ratio and achieve saturation level as strain ratio up to ∼35%.

Efficient full-path optical calculation of scalar and vector diffraction using the Bluestein method.

Efficient calculation of the light diffraction in free space is of great significance for tracing electromagnetic field propagation and predicting the performance of optical systems such as microscopy, photolithography, and manipulation. However, existing calculation methods suffer from low computational efficiency and poor flexibility. Here, we present a fast and flexible calculation method for computing scalar and vector diffraction in the corresponding optical regimes using the Bluestein method. The computation time can be substantially reduced to the sub-second level, which is 105 faster than that achieved by the direct integration approach (~hours level) and 102 faster than that achieved by the fast Fourier transform method (~minutes level). The high efficiency facilitates the ultrafast evaluation of light propagation in diverse optical systems. Furthermore, the region of interest and the sampling numbers can be arbitrarily chosen, endowing the proposed method with superior flexibility. Based on these results, full-path calculation of a complex optical system is readily demonstrated and verified by experimental results, laying a foundation for real-time light field analysis for realistic optical implementation such as imaging, laser processing, and optical manipulation.

Ultrathin and High-Stress-Resolution Liquid-Metal-Based Pressure Sensors with Simple Device Structures.

Soft pressure sensors based on liquid metals (LMs) may find broad applications, but it is challenging to fabricate such sensors that can achieve high stress resolution without additional parts. Herein, a method named laser-induced selective adhesion transfer (LISAT) is proposed. LISAT can pattern LM by selectively changing high adhesion of the poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) surface to LM into low adhesion with the aid of rough micro/nanostructures induced by a femtosecond laser. Based on this principle, LM microchannels with controllable shapes can be obtained by LM transfer and subsequent encapsulation. Since the smallest microchannel thickness is only ∼25 µm, sensor stress resolution can reach 0.0168 kPa without any additional parts to amplify the effect of pressure. As proof-of-concept demonstrations, the sensor is used for sensing the dynamic movement of a small sphere (∼0.16 g) and even an ant (∼0.025 g). LISAT provides a versatile platform for fabricating high-stress-resolution LM pressure sensors with controllable patterns and device structures to adapt to different application scenarios.