Polymer architecture as key to unprecedented high-resolution 3D-printing performance: The case of biodegradable hexa-functional telechelic urethane-based poly-?-caprolactone

Two-photon polymerization (2PP) is a high-resolution 3D-printing technology with very rapidly expanding field of applications, including tissue engineering (TE). In this field, 2PP offers unprecedented possibilities for systematic studies both cell–cell and cell–material interactions in 3D. For TE the reliable production biodegradable micro-scaffolds porous, complex architectures essential. However, number materials that support required level spatial resolution limited, being major bottleneck use field. Herein, we introduce hexa-functional urethane-based precursor overcomes limitations associated printing current precursors. The telechelic poly-?-caprolactone (PCL) possessing three acrylate functionalities at each polymer end group which enables owing to its superior physical properties as compared traditional di-acrylate terminated analogs. newly developed PCL reveals enhanced crosslinking kinetics one order magnitude higher Young’s modulus di-functional (57.8 versus 6.3 MPa), providing an efficient solvent-free processing fast scanning speeds up 100 mm s?1 feature resolutions (143 ± 18 nm speed). crosslinked combines strength flexibility segregation between hard polyacrylate soft segments, makes it suitable biological systems contrast highly rigid structures typically manufactured by 2PP. Furthermore, revealed lower degradation rate analog, can be considered advantage terms biocompatibility due slower formation acidic products. Extracts polymers did not show cytotoxic effect on L929 fibroblasts confirmed via ISO 10993-5 standard protocol. presented design constitutes simple effective approach easily translated towards other manufacturing constructs nano-scale precision, offering first time true capabilities applications synthetic polymers.