Acceleration of biodegradation by ultraviolet femtosecond laser irradiation to biodegradable polymer

Biodegradability is a key property of biodegradable polymers for tissue scaffold applications. Among the methods to control biodegradability, laser processing is a simple technique, which enables the alteration of biodegradability even after molding. Since ultrafast laser processing realizes precise processing of biodegradable polymer with less heat affected zone, ultrafast laser processing has the potential to fabricate tissue scaffolds and to control its biodegradability. In this study, we investigate the effect of femtosecond laser wavelength on the biodegradability of PLGA. We evaluated the biodegradability of PLGA irradiated with femtosecond laser pulses at the wavelength of 800, 400, 266 nm by the measurement of the change in mass of PLGA during water immersion. The results of degradation tests indicate that PLGA irradiated with the shorter wavelength show faster water absorption as well as rapid mass decrease. Since the results of X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis indicate that the chemical bonds of PLGA irradiated with the shorter wavelength are dissociated more significantly, the acceleration of the biodegradation could be attributable to the decrease in molecular weight by chemical bond breaking.