Anti-stiction coating of PDMS moulds for rapid microchannel fabrication by double replica moulding

Abstract

In this paper, we report a simple and precise method to rapidly replicate master structures for fast microchannel fabrication by double replica moulding of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). A PDMS mould was surface-treated by vapour phase deposition of 1H,1H,2H,2H-perfluorodecyltrichlorosilane (FDTS), which resulted in an anti-stiction layer for the improved release after PDMS casting. The deposition of FDTS on an O2 plasma-activated surface of PDMS produced a reproducible and well-performing anti-stiction monolayer of fluorocarbon, and we used the FDTS-coated moulds as micro-masters for rapid replication of micro-structures, avoiding the necessity to have to use other, more costly and fragile master materials. Our protocol has been shown to reliably fabricate PDMS-based microfluidic devices in a low-cost and efficient manner. The replicas were further employed as micro-contract stamps to fabricate polymer-based waveguides.