On-chip fabrication and assembly of rotational microstructures

Abstract

The microstructures are expected to be used as the components of on-chip single cell analysis system such as cell manipulation and measurement tools. In this paper, we propose the on-chip fabrication method of microstructures with minimum dimensions of 5 ¿m. The micro objects with arbitrary shape are fabricated by illumination of patterned UV-ray through the mask. The arbitrary shape objects are made of the photo-crosslinkable resin on the microchip under a microscope. The polymerized micro-objects, which we call as ¿Microtools¿, can be used for the single cell analysis. The microtools are fabricated at the desired place on the microchip in less than 1 second. Additionally, the microtools are manipulated by optical tweezers. By high-speed scanning of a single laser with galvanometer mirror, it is able to manipulate multiple points simultaneously. Using this technique, the rotational microstructure composed of the rotation axis and the microgear is assembled and rotated. We propose the two method of microstructure assembly. The assembled rotational microstructure is evaluated about the rotation speed depending on the laser power.