Soft Lithography, Molding, and Micromachining Techniques for Polymer Micro Devices.

Abstract

This chapter enumerates the methods, protocol, and safety procedures of various fabrication techniques for polymer-based microfluidic devices. The polymer materials can be a solid or a liquid, and the fabrication protocol needs to be executed accordingly. Various techniques demonstrating the fabrication of microfluidic devices using solid and liquid polymers are described. Procedure for each fabrication process is delineated with detailed images. Further, dos and don'ts for all the fabrication techniques are explained in the notes of each section. This chapter will benefit those interested in the microfluidic device fabrication using polymers and guide them to avoid mistakes so as to obtain an elegant device.The techniques are listed as follows: 1. Replica molding 2. Microcontact printing 3. Micro-transfer molding 4. Solvent-assisted molding 5. Hot embossing 6. Injection molding 7. CNC micromachining 8. Laser photo ablation 9. X-ray lithography 10. UV patterning 11. Plasma etching 12. Ion beam etching 13. Capillary molding 14. Micro-stereolithography.