NOCC

Experimental notes

13.06.2024 - NA

19.06.2024 - NA

20.06.2024 - NA

Short summary

Progress September 2023 - June 2024

Stenciling techniques proves to work best when the intern-pattern distance is roughly 50 microns. Anything smaller than that becomes difficult to make a stencil out of, regardless of the glue used or slight improvements in the technique.

After testing out micropatterning using stenciling using patterns with big features, we were able to get some data of MDCK motion confined by circular or square patches. AAD started preparing wafers with patterns of smaller features, such as the topological patterns inspired by https://journals.aps.org/pre/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevE.103.022703 amongst other papers.

So, challenges so far are:

• it is difficult to make stencils of our micropatterns using our current technique. Using less viscous glue (NOA89 instead of NOA73) did not help much.
• Stamping could be a good alternative - NA is currently testing it out to see if it can work.
• Otherwise, we are able to get good data of MDCK cells moving in a confined patch, which is good news!

The next goal (as of 19th of June 2024) is to test stamping the patterns instead of stenciling them. NA will test out some protocols and will hopefully get better results than those with stenciling.

Almost successful stencil of micropattern from AAD's wafer #2. The patterns on the top and bottom of the stamp were transferred well using NOA89 glue, but not the patterns in the middle. This leaves the stencil with a big hole in the middle where there are no patterns, and can therefore not be used further in the experiments.