Poly(D, L-Lactic Acid) (PDLLA) Biodegradable and Biocompatible Polymer Optical Fiber

Autor: Peter Dubruel, Adam Filipkowski, Hugo Thienpont, Ryszard Buczynski, Agnieszka Gierej, Maxime Vagenende, Sandra Van Vlierberghe, Bartłomiej Siwicki, Thomas Geernaert, Francis Berghmans
Přispěvatelé: Faculty of Engineering, Applied Physics and Photonics, Brussels Photonics Team
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2019
Předmět:
Popis: We demonstrate that commercially available poly(D,L-lactic acid) (PDLLA) is a suitable material for the fabrication of biodegradable optical fibers with a standard heat drawing process. To do so we report on the chemical and optical characterization of the material. We address the influence of the polymer processing on the molecular weight and thermal properties of the polymer following the preparation of the polymer preforms and the fiber optic drawing process. We show that cutback measurements of the first optical fibers drawn from PDLLA return an attenuation coefficient as low as 0.11 dB/cm at 772 nm, which is the lowest loss reported this far for optical fibers drawn from bio-resorbable material. We also report on the dispersion characteristics of PDLLA, and we find that the thermo-optic coefficient is in the range of −10−4°C−1. Finally, we studied the degradation of PDLLA fibers in vitro, revealing that fibers with the largest diameter of 600 µm degrade faster than those with smaller diameters of 300 and 200 µm and feature more than 84% molecular weight loss over a period of 3 months. The evolution of the optical loss of the fibers as a function of time during immersion in phosphate-buffered saline indicates that these devices are potential candidates for use in photodynamic therapy-like application scenarios.
Databáze: OpenAIRE