Viscoelastic lithography for fabricating self-organizing soft micro-honeycomb structures with ultra-high aspect ratios

High-aspect ratio micro- and nano-structures have been used for the production of a variety of applications. In this paper, we describe a simple and cost-effective approach to fabricate an arrayed microarchitecture with an ultra-high aspect ratio using soft materials. The shapes and sizes of the honeycomb structure can be easily modulated by changing the dimensions and position of the base mould pattern and the pressure. The honeycomb structure is used to prepare a drug delivery patch and a microwell array to form cell spheroids without cell loss. The honeycomb structures prepared using natural ECM (collagen–Matrigel) materials are successfully fabricated. The hepatocytes and endothelial cells are seeded and co-cultured in the ECM-based micro-honeycomb to prepare a 3D liver model successfully mimicking an ultrastructure of liver and providing enhanced liver function. Tissue engineering applications call for controllable micro-structural units as a platform, but their fabrication remains challenging. Here, Jeong et al . show a method that enables soft materials to self-organize into highly packed micro-honeycomb structures with aspect ratios up to 500, and tunable shapes.