Nanostructures for all-polymer microfluidic systems

✍ Scribed by Maria Matschuk; Henrik Bruus; Niels B. Larsen

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2010
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 372 KB
• Volume: 87
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0167-9317
• DOI: 10.1016/j.mee.2009.11.167

✦ Synopsis

We present a process for fabricating nanostructured surfaces with feature sizes down to at least 50 nm and aspect ratios of 1:1 by injection molding. We explored the effects of mold coatings and injection molding conditions on the final nanostructure quality. A plasma-polymerized fluorocarbon based antistiction coating was found to improve the replication fidelity (shape and depth) of nanoscale features substantially. Arrays of holes of 50 nm diameter/35 nm depth and 100 nm/100 nm diameter, respectively, were mass-produced in cyclic olefin copolymer (Topas 5013) by injection molding. Polymer microfluidic channel chip parts resulted from a separate injection molding process. The microfluidic chip part and the nanostructured chip part were successfully bonded to form a sealed microfluidic system using air plasma assisted thermal bonding.