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Soft-lithography fabrication of microfluidic features using thiol-ene formulations
John F Ashley1, Neil B Cramer, Robert H Davis
1Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, ECCH 111, UCB 424, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309-0424, USA.
Lab on a Chip
|June 22, 2011
Summary
A new thiol-ene resin offers superior performance for fabricating microfluidic devices using photolithography. This resin achieves high-quality, high-aspect-ratio features, outperforming traditional acrylate resins.
Area of Science:
- Materials Science
- Chemical Engineering
- Microfluidics
Background:
- Photolithography is crucial for microfluidic device fabrication.
- Oxygen inhibition and cure time are challenges in photopolymerizable resins.
- Acrylate-based resins have limitations in achieving high-aspect-ratio features.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop and optimize a novel thiol-ene based photopolymerizable resin.
- To evaluate the resin's performance for microfluidic device fabrication.
- To compare thiol-ene resin performance against acrylate-based formulations.
Main Methods:
- Formulation of a novel thiol-ene based photopolymerizable resin.
- Photolithographic fabrication of microfluidic devices.
- Optical techniques to assess feature fidelity, shape, and quality.
- Systematic variation of exposure conditions, initiator concentration, and inhibitor to initiator ratio.
Main Results:
- The thiol-ene resin demonstrated low cure time and overcame oxygen inhibition.
- High fidelity and high aspect ratio features were achieved with optimized formulation.
- Thiol-ene resin showed significantly improved feature quality at aspect ratios above 2 compared to acrylate resins.
- A pinched-flow microfluidic device with 50 μm channels and aspect ratio 14 was successfully fabricated.
Conclusions:
- The novel thiol-ene resin is highly suitable for photolithographic fabrication of microfluidic devices.
- This resin enables the creation of complex microfluidic devices with high-aspect-ratio features.
- Thiol-ene resins offer a significant advantage over acrylate resins for high-aspect-ratio microfabrication.
