Geometric and mechanical characterizations of hydrogel materials at the microscale are attracting increasing attention due to their importance in tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, and drug delivery applications. Contemporary approaches for measuring the these properties of hydrogel microbeads suffer from low‐throughput, complex system configuration, and measurement inaccuracy. In this work, a continuous‐flow device is developed to measure geometric and viscoelastic properties of hydrogel microbeads by flowing the microbeads through a tapered microchannel with an array of interdigitated microelectrodes patterned underneath the channel. The viscoelastic properties are derived from the trajectories of microbeads using a quasi‐linear viscoelastic model. The measurement is independent of the applied volumetric flow rate. The results show that the geometric and viscoelastic properties of Ca‐alginate hydrogel microbeads can be determined independently and simultaneously. The bulky high‐speed optical systems are eliminated, simplifying the system configuration and making it a truly miniaturized device. A throughput of up to 394 microbeads min⁻¹ is achieved. This study may provide a powerful tool for mechanical profiling of hydrogel microbeads to support their wide applications.

中文翻译：

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使用嵌入电极的连续流微流体同时测量水凝胶微珠的几何和粘弹性特性

由于水凝胶材料在组织工程，再生医学和药物输送应用中的重要性，因此在微观尺度上对水凝胶材料的几何和机械表征越来越受到关注。测量水凝胶微珠这些性质的现代方法存在低通量，复杂的系统配置以及测量不准确的问题。在这项工作中，开发了一种连续流设备，通过使微珠流过锥形微通道并在通道下方图案化的叉指式微电极阵列，来测量水凝胶微珠的几何和粘弹性。粘弹性是使用准线性粘弹性模型从微珠的轨迹得出的。测量与所应用的体积流量无关。结果表明，藻酸钙水凝胶微珠的几何和粘弹性能可以同时确定。无需使用笨重的高速光学系统，从而简化了系统配置，使其成为真正的小型化设备。最小吞吐量为394微珠达到^-1。这项研究可能为水凝胶微珠的机械性能分析提供强大的工具，以支持其广泛的应用。