This review highlights recent advances towards non-invasive and continuous glucose monitoring devices, with a particular focus placed on monitoring glucose concentrations in alternative physiological fluids to blood.
With the advent of direct laser writing using two-photon polymerization, the generation of high-resolution three-dimensional microstructures has increased dramatically. However, the development of stimuli-responsive photoresists to create four-dimensional (4D) microstructures remains a challenge. Herein, we present a supramolecular cholesteric liquid crystalline photonic photoresist for the fabrication of 4D photonic microactuators, such as pillars, flowers, and butterflies, with submicron resolution. These micron-sized features display structural color and shape changes triggered by a variation of humidity or temperature. These findings serve as a roadmap for the design and creation of high-resolution 4D photonic microactuators.
1 October 2017 in Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical
Stimuli‐responsive hydrogels have attracted much attention owing to the versatility of their programmed response in offering intelligent solutions for biomimicry applications, such as soft robotics, tissue engineering, and drug delivery. To achieve the complexity of biomimetic structures, two photon polymerization (2PP) has provided a means of fabricating intricate 3D structures from stimuli‐responsive hydrogels. Rapid swelling hydrogel microstructures are advantageous for osmotically driven stimuli‐response, where actuation speed, that is reliant on the diffusion of analytes or bioanalytes, can be optimized. Herein, the flexibility of 2PP is exploited to showcase a novel sugar‐responsive, phenylboronic acid‐based photoresist. This offers a remarkable solution for achieving fast response hydrogel systems that have been often hindered by the volume‐dependent diffusion times of analytes to receptor sites. A phenylboronic acid‐based photoresist compatible with 2PP is presented to fabricate stimuli‐responsive microstructures with accelerated response times. Moreover, microstructures with programmable actuation (i.e., bending and opening) are fabricated using the same photoresist within a one‐step fabrication process. By combining the flexibility of 2PP with an easily adaptable photoresist, an accessible fabrication method is showcased for sophisticated and chemo‐responsive 3D hydrogel actuators.