Assembly of alginate microfibers to form a helical structure using micromanipulation with a magnetic field

Helical structures assembled using alginate microfibers have a promising spatial architecture mimicking in vivo vessels for culturing vascular cells. However, the helical structure can only be assembled at the macroscale, since a microassembly-based approach has not yet been developed. In this paper, we propose a magnetic-field-based micromanipulation method to fabricate a helical microstructure. By microfluidic spinning, alginate microfibers encapsulating magnetic nanoparticles are synthesized to enable the control of an electromagnetic needle (EMN). We developed a microrobotic system to actuate a micropipette to fix a free end of the microfiber, and then move the EMN to reel the microfiber around a micropillar. The motion of the EMN is guided using an upright microscope and a side-view camera. Because of the limitation of operation space, a spacer sleeve was designed to keep the tip of the EMN attracted to the microfiber, and simultaneously to keep the other part of the EMN isolated from the microfiber. To ensure the availability of the microfiber for continuously coiling, we enable the EMN tip to slide on the surface of the microfiber without changing the tensioning of the microfiber for positioning control. Furthermore, stable and repeatable micromanipulation was achieved to form multi-turn microfiber coils based on the motion planning of the EMN. Finally, we successfully fabricated a helical microstructure that can be applied in vascular tissue engineering in the future.