Mayo Clinic

Additive Manufacturing of Medical Microdevices

Additive manufacturing is a growing field, but its application in the fabrication of medical microdevices has not been fully explored. Traditionally, medical microdevices are manufactured via a combination of techniques such as photolithography, laser-cutting, and micromolding, which collectively have challenges such as multiple fabrication steps, limited design freedom, high fabrication cost, and significant fabrication time. Micro vat photopolymerization is presented here as an alternative method to produce four different microscale medical devices that have applications in microfluidics, drug delivery, and bioscaffolding. In terms of minimum feature size and resolution, the presented structures are comparable, if not superior, to literature quoted parts fabricated through conventional manufacturing methods. The fabrication steps, process parameters, design considerations, learnings, and future research directions are outlined.

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