| Abstract |
In the past few years, direct laser writing technology has been extensively studied, due to its
ability for direct fabricating of complex 3D structures, which scale varies from several nanometers
to some millimeters. This technology is based on nonlinear lithography and specifically, on twophoton
polymerization process induced with a femtosecond laser. In this thesis, two-photon
polymerization process was used for creating scaffolds with photosensitive biomaterials, for
biomedical applications.
In the first part, the 3D scaffolds’ fabrication using photosensitive, non-biodegradable
materials has been investigated. The ability to develop 3D cell cultures on these scaffolds for tissue
engineering applications has also been studied. Tissue engineering is a technology based on
developing biological substitutes for the repair, reconstruction, regeneration or replacement of
tissue. In this study, two organic-inorganic hybrid photosensitive sol-gel materials were used; a
Zirconium based and a Titanium based material. The next step after the successful results of
fibroblast cultivation on 2D thin films, was the fabrication of 3D complex porous structures, with
the same materials and by using the same process of cultivation, inspiring results were given.
In the second part, a new biodegradable polylactide-based material was used for fabricating
tissue engineering scaffolds. In cooperation with the Kroto Research Institute and specifically the
Department of Materials Science and Engineering of University of Sheffield, where the material
was synthesized, neuronal cells (cell line PC12), as well as fibroblast cells (cell line 3T3), were
cultivated on two dimensional thin films for checking the cells viability and proliferation and after
the encouraging biocompatibility results, 3D complex porous structures were fabricated. The cells
cultivation on the 3D scaffolds had successful results.
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Biomedical applications via nonlinear lithography
