Pulsed laser micro drilling act on Perspex intended for microfluidic devices

Abstract

An amorphous material with excellent shape memory effect (SME) like Perspex is a versatile material with broad applications in the bio-related field. Moreover, its extravagant properties like biological behavior, antimicrobial capacity, and porosity make it a choice for ophthalmologic devices, drug delivery, and microfluidic-based chromatography. However, its brittleness property and the formation of brittle-ductile transition make it a complex and delicate material for machining processes. A laser beam is an idiosyncratic tool used in engineering to biomedical fields. Compared to other lasers, the CO2 laser has a longer wavelength of 10.6 µm, which makes it the best choice for processing transparent material like Perspex. In this research CO2 laser micro-drilling (CLMD) act has been performed to design micro-holes on Perspex by tailoring the scan tracks of the laser. The movement of scanning tracks was controlled, and the beam functionalities' process windows were handled through adequate parametric settings like scan mode, machining speed, power, and pulsed frequency. The selection of optimal control factors is crucial for the adequate dimensional characteristics of holes, such as circularity and conicity. In continuation, multi-response optimization using RSM was employed to acquire the desired values of CLMD responses. Thus, the current CLMD approach may emanate its proprietary in fabricating micro-holes designed for a microfluidic device as an integrated inlet–outlet connector for fluidic manipulation. The findings of this research may be a worthy contribution to the biomedical field, as the designed holes by the current process on Perspex have not yet been addressed in any articles.