Fabricated polycarbonate microchannel with different films using CO2 laser beam of two-pass for microfluidic chip

Abstract

This paper demonstrates a novel and low-cost method for fabricating microchannel on polycarbonate (PC) sheet using CO2 laser. In the work, many microchannels are processed by CO2 laser beam of two-pass. Three sheets with different films are researched for increasing the cleanliness of PC sheet surface after CO2 laser processing. The experimental results show the surface of PC sheet with transparent wallpaper is most clear, but it has very large influence on width and depth of microchannel. In the next experiment, Taguchi method is used for optimizing CO2 laser processing parameters for decreasing the deviation of width and depth of microchannel. In the study, smaller-the-better signal-to-noise ratio is calculated. The result shows laser power is maximum influence factor and microchannel length is minimum influence factor on the deviation of width and depth of microchannel. The optimal processing parameters are laser power of 8 W, laser moving velocity of 15 mm/s and microchannel length of 100 mm. A verified experiment is preformed using the optimal processing parameters.