Ultra-stable and ultra-fast fabrication of microwells using laser ablation in plane PS for the formation of size-controlled hepatic tumor spheroids

This work presents an ultra-stable laser-ablated microwells for the formation of hepatic tumor spheroids. The microwells were fabricated by CO2 laser ablation on polystyrene (PS) surface for generating multicellular tumor spheroid, demonstrating a rapid and economical prototyping method. Laser commend pulses including frequency, number of pulses and duty cycle were investigated. We presented a reference to fabricate expected profiles of microwells easily by controlling frequency, number of pulses and duty cycle of laser system. Hepatocarcinoma tumor spheroids were grown in the microwells for long-term culture to test the feasibility of the current approach for generating multicellular tumor spheroids.