Hydrogel wrinkles

These days I am developing a more reliable lithography process for making hydrogels. Unfortunately, today’s tests resulted in the samples not detaching from the substrate. On the bright side, some intriguing wrinkling patterns formed on the surface of the hydrogels as a result of constrained swelling.

Wrinkling patterns in hydrogels. The image shows a 10x magnification of the hydrogel surface.