Abstract
This article describes the manufacturing and characterisation of plano-convex miniaturised lenses using a CO2 laser engraving process in PMMA substrates. The technique allows for lenses to be fabricated rapidly and in a reproducible manner at depths of over 200 µm and for lens diameters of more than 3 mm. Experimental characterisation of the lens focal lengths shows good correlation with theory. The plano-convex lenses have been successfully embedded into capillary microfluidic systems alongside planar microlenses, allowing for a significant reduction of ancillary optics without a loss of detection sensitivity when performing fluorescence measurements. Such technology provides a significant step forward towards the portability of fluorescence- or luminescence-based systems for biological/chemical analysis.
Highlights
Lab-on-a-chip technologies have revolutionised biological- and chemical-based processes for diagnostics-based applications
An elegant approach to remedy this bottleneck with respect to true device portability and Micromachines 2014, 5 miniaturisation includes the use of embedded on chip microlenses and microlens arrays [3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10] for lab-on-a-chip systems, and for alternative applications, ranging from optical storage/communications, high definition displays to a host of biomedical instrumentation [11]
The defect removal procedure was focused on the lenses only and not on the bulk of the poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) substrate material, which had been engraved away using the CO2 laser
Summary
Lab-on-a-chip technologies have revolutionised biological- and chemical-based processes for diagnostics-based applications. Various microlenses and microarray structures have been fabricated in a range of substrates using techniques, such as photolithography/reactive ion etching [3,4,5,6,7], surface tension-based curing [10,11], laser ablation, engraving and thermal expansion [8,9,12,13,14], thermal reflow [15,16], embossing [17,18] and inkjetting [19,20] Of these fabrication processes, CO2 laser engraving is an attractive alternative to established micro-manufacturing techniques for the production of optical components, and such a technology has a rapid turnaround time and does not require fixed photomasks, embossing tools or a clean room environment and is suited to polymer manufacturing, a substrate most commonly used for the fabrication of various microsystems [8,9,21,22,23,24,25]. Without adequate post-processing, the quality of manufactured microfluidics and the surface quality of the lenses are poor compared to techniques, such as photolithography or thermal reflow
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