A high-efficiency three-dimensional helical micromixer in fused silica

Abstract

True three-dimensional (3D) micromixers in fused silica are highly desirable for efficient and compact mixing in microfluidic applications. However, realization of such devices remains technically challenging. Here, we report high-quality fabrication of 3D helical microchannels in fused silica by taking the full advantage of an improved femtosecond laser irradiation followed by chemical etching process, and a glass-PDMS interface structure is introduced for assembling 3D helical micromixer. Highly efficient mixing is achieved in the helical micromixer at low Reynolds numbers, whose excellent mixing performance is approved by the experimental evaluation and computational fluid dynamics simulation.