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In order for super absorbent polymer (SAP) to be used in an application undergoing mechanical stress, it is necessary to regulate its shape and mechanical properties, which have been rarely studies. Here, spherical SAPs were prepared through inverse-suspension polymerization of partially neutralized acrylic acid monomers with ethylene glycol diacrylate (EGDA) crosslinkers. The surface region of SAP spheres was additionally crosslinked with ethylene glycol diglycidyl ether (EGDE) to improve the mechanical properties, producing a core-shell structure characterized by lightly crosslinked core and more densely crosslinked shell. Mechanical responses of the cross-linked SAP to global compression were obtained from experiments using a custom-made indentation device. The local mechanical properties of crosslinked surface were measured by atomic force microscopy. While the global responses of SAP were similar independent of surface crosslinking, the modulus of crosslinked surface increased as concentration of EGDE. In our experimental conditions, the surface modulus of surface crosslinked SAP was increased 2.7 folds, compared to that of SAP without surface crosslinking. The structure of SAP spheres with and without surface crosslinking was also visualized, and thickness of crosslinked surface was measured with fluorescence microscopy. We found that the thickness of crosslinked surface increased with increasing EGDE concentration but became saturated. Furthermore, a computational model was developed for core-shell SAP spheres using the measured mechanical properties, and was utilized to predict the thickness of crosslinked surface. Finally, we propose an analytical diffusion model that describes the diffusion and surface crosslinking reaction to elucidate the mechanism over which the mechanical and diffusion properties of SAP sphere are determined.

The development of pressure sensors that are effective over a broad range of pressures is crucial for the future development of electronic skin applicable to the detection of a wide pressure range from acoustic wave to dynamic human motion. Here, we present flexible capacitive pressure sensors that incorporate micropatterned pyramidal ionic gels to enable ultrasensitive pressure detection. Our devices show superior pressure-sensing performance, with a broad sensing range from a few pascals up to 50 kPa, with fast response times of

Skin is exposed to various physico-chemical cues. Keratinocytes, a major component of the skin epidermis, directly interact with the surrounding extracellular matrix, and thus, biochemical and biophysical stimulations from the matrix regulate the function of keratinocytes. Although it was reported that inflammatory responses of skin were altered by an applied mechanical force, understanding how the keratinocytes sense the mechanical stimuli and regulate a cytokine secretion remains unclear. Here, we designed a device that is able to apply chemo-mechanical cues to keratinocytes and assess their proinflammatory cytokine IL-6 production. We showed that when chemical stimuli were applied with mechanical stimuli simultaneously, the IL-6 production markedly increased compared to that observed with a single stimulus. Quantitative structural analysis of cellular components revealed that the applied mechanical stretch transformed the cell morphology into an elongated shape, increased the cell size, and dictated the distribution of focal adhesion complex. Our results suggest that the mechanical cue-mediated modulation of focal adhesion proteins and actin cytoskeleton translates into intracellular signaling associated with the IL-6 production particularly in skin sensitization. Our study can be applied to understand proinflammatory responses of skin under altered biophysical environments of the skin.

A PEG-based hydrogel with a high conductivity and water content was synthesized using a two-step sequential polymerization process by in-situ polymerizing poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) within poly(4-styrenesulfonic acid) (PSS)-containing poly(ethylene glycol) diacrylate (PEG-DA) hydrogel matrix. A small amount of diluted sulfuric acid (H 2 SO 4 ) was added as an accelerator to increase the conductivity via reduced polymerization time. Among the various molecular weights (MW) of PEG, PEG-DA with MW 3400 was used for first hydrogel due to its mechanical property and water content. Incorporation of PSS within the PEG hydrogel facilitated the in-situ synthesis of PEDOT within the hydrogel, producing a hydrogel with a higher conductivity, which was further enhanced by H 2 SO 4 treatment. The resultant semi-interpenetrating network hydrogel scaffolds were shown to consist of up to more than 80 wt% of water with a compressive modulus of 21 kPa and an electrical conductivity of 1.69 × 10 − 2 S cm − 1 . The surface of the resultant conductive hydrogel could be modified via photochemical fixation for cell adhesion with negligible conductivity change. In vitro studies using electro-responsive H9C2 myocytes showed that the developed hydrogels not only did not exhibit any cytotoxicity but also supported cell adhesion and proliferation. This work demonstrates that the architectural design of the conductive hydrogel scaffolds and growth mechanism of PEDOT in the hydrogel platform play a pivotal role in determining the properties of the resulting conductive hydrogel. The attractive performance of these hybrid hydrogels will open a new approach for the further research on electrically conductive tissue engineering scaffolds.

Transdermal drug delivery (TDD) has been recently highlighted as an alternative to oral delivery and hypodermic injections. Among many methods, drug delivery using a microneedle (MN) is one of the promising administration strategies due to its high skin permeability, mininal invasiveness, and ease of injection. In addition, microneedle-based TDD is explored for cosmetic and therapeutic purposes, rapidly developing market of microneedle industry for general population. To date, visualization of microneedles inserted into biological tissue has primarily been performed ex vivo. MRI, CT and ultrasound imaging do not provide sufficient spatial resolution, and optical microscopy is not suitable because of their limited imaging depth; structure of microneedles located in 0.2~1mm into the skin cannot be visulalized. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a non-invasive, cross-sectional optical imaging modality for biological tissue with high spatial resolution and acquisition speed. Compared with ultrasound imaging, it exhibits superior spatial resolution (1~10 um) and high sensitivity, while providing an imaging depth of biological tissue down to 1~2 mm. Here, we present in situ imaging and analysis of the penetration and dissolution characteristics of hyaluronic acid based MNs (HA-MN) with various needle heights in human skin in vivo. In contrast to other studies, we measured the actual penetration depths of the HA-MNs by considering the experimentally measured refractive index of HA in the solid state. For the dissolution dynamics of the HA-MNs, time-lapse structural alteration of the MNs could be clearly visualized, and the volumetric changes of the MNs were measured with an image analysis algorithm.

InSb nanostructures embedded in InAs and InAsSb matrices were grown on InAs (001) and GaAs (001) substrates by molecular beam epitaxy. The diameter and height of InSb quantum dots (QDs) on InAs with 2ML-InSb coverage grown by Stranski-Krastanov (S-K) are ~36.8 nm and ~3.1 nm, respectively. The density of QDs is ~2.5×1010 cm-2. The size distribution of InSb QDs on InAs with 2ML-InSb coverage grown by migration enhanced epitaxy (MEE) was larger than that of its S-K counterpart. Unique InSb quantum dashes (Q-dashes) on InAsSb elongated along two directions were found on an AlSb-buffered GaAs substrate. InSb Q-dashes grown by migration enhanced epitaxy (MEE) were ~159 nm in length, ~63 nm in width, and ~11 nm in height. A large reduction of volume of InSb structures between those in the matrix and those on the surface was found. Threading disl°Cations resulting from the Q-dash structures were also observed. This may be attributed to As-Sb exchange.