Cyanobacteria suspension microdot array with optical vortex induced forward transfer

Laser-induced forward transfer (LIFT) has been collecting much attention as a nozzle-free, cost-effective and resource-efficient printing technology for the development of printed electronic/photonic devices and bioprinting with high cell viability. In recent years, we and our co-workers have proposed a novel LIFT technology with optical vortex possessing a helical wavefront (we called OV-LIFT) instead of a conventional Gaussian beam with a plane wavefront, which enables the high definition print of materials even with an extremely long working distance. In our experiments, we demonstrate the 2-dimansionally direct print of cyanobacteria cells water/glycerol suspension including biocompatible materials (polyethylene glycol diacrylate) with OV-LIFT. The printed dots exhibit a diameter of approximately 50 μm with a positioning accuracy of about 6 μm. Also, we address high viability of cyanobacterial cells, as evidenced by photosynthetic activity of cyanobacterial cells in as-printed dots.