Robust Polymer Microfluidic Device Fabrication via Contact Liquid Photolitographic Polymerization (CLiPP)

• Microfluidic devices are commonly fabricated in silicon or glass using micromachining technology or elastomers using soft lithography methods; however, invariable bulk material properties, limited surface modification methods and difficulty in fabricating high aspect ratio devices prevent these materials from being utilized in numerous applications and/or lead to high fabrication costs. Contact Liquid Photolithographic Polymerization (CLiPP) was developed as an alternative microfabrication approach that uniquely exploits living radical photopolymerization chemistry to facilitate surface modification of device components, fabrication of high aspect ratio structures from many different materials with numerous covalently-adhered layers and facile construction of three-dimensional devices. This contribution describes CLiPP and demonstrates unique advantages of this new technology for microfabrication of polymeric microdevices. Specifically, the procedure for fabricating devices with CLiPP is presented, the living radical photopolymerization chemistry which enables this technology is described, and examples of devices made using CLiPP are shown.

Subject headings

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Kemi -- Polymerkemi (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Chemical Sciences -- Polymer Chemistry (hsv//eng)

Keyword

HIGH-ASPECT-RATIO

ON-A-CHIP

SOFT LITHOGRAPHY

3-DIMENSIONAL MICROFABRICATION

PHOTOPOLYMERIZATION

SYSTEMS

INIFERTER

MEMS

STEREOLITHOGRAPHY

MONOLITHS

Polymer chemistry

Polymerkemi

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)