@article{ae7c82530c8a498080f5a5299b37bfc1,
title = "Evaluation of techniques used for visualisation of hydrogel morphology and determination of pore size distributions",
abstract = "This study evaluated three techniques, stimulated emission depletion (STED) microscopy, atomic force microscopy (AFM), and cryogenic scanning electron microscopy (Cryo-SEM), for visualising the morphology and obtaining pore size information of agarose hydrogels (0.38, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0% agarose content). The pore size distributions were obtained using a common manual approach which was validated for Cryo-SEM data using poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) nanoparticles as an internal standard. There was good agreement in pore size distribution data for agarose hydrogels with an agarose content of 1.0% and higher when using these techniques. For the 1.0% gel sample imaged using STED and Cryo-SEM, no significant difference was observed between these two techniques yielding average pore sizes of 240 and 230 nm, respectively. The average pore size values obtained from AFM images for 1.5 and 2.0% gel samples were significantly smaller by 10-15% compared to values obtained from Cryo-SEM data as predicted due to the AFM tip artefact for concave features. Pros and cons of each technique are discussed in detail.",
author = "Imanda Jayawardena and Petri Turunen and Garms, {Bruna Cambraia} and Alan Rowan and Simon Corrie and Lisbeth Gr{\o}ndahl",
note = "Funding Information: The authors acknowledge helpful suggestions from Dr Gleb Yakubov. This work was performed in part at the Queensland node of the Australian National Fabrication Facility by Dr Elena Taran; a company established under the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy to provide nano and microfabrication facilities for Australia's researchers. The authors also acknowledge the facilities and the scientific and technical assistance of Dr Kim Sewell of the Australian Microscopy and Microanalysis Research Facility at the Centre of Microscopy and Microanalysis at The University of Queensland and Ms Tong Wu of the Queensland Branch of Olympus Australia. We acknowledge funding from the University of Queensland International Scholarship (IJ and BCG), ARC Centre of Excellence in Bio-Nano Science (SRC) and ARC Laureate fellowship FL16010139 (AR). Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} The Author(s). Published by the Royal Society of Chemistry.",
year = "2023",
month = jan,
day = "3",
doi = "10.1039/d2ma00932c",
language = "English",
volume = "2",
journal = "Materials Advances",
issn = "2633-5409",
publisher = "The Royal Society of Chemistry",
}