Roll-to-flat texturing system with infrared preheating for manufacturing a microfluidic device

Abstract

In the present study, a roll-to-flat (R2F) texturing system with infrared preheating was developed and characterized for the purpose of massively producing thermoplastic microfluidic devices with the height of 100 pm-scale. A thermoplastic substrate preheated up to its glass transition temperature (T-g) by a halogen lamp was textured between a roll mold and a plane actuator. After texturing, the substrate could be immediately cooled down as the roll mold screened the substrate from the infrared heat source. In order to characterize the transcription performance of the developed R2F texturing system for 100 gm features, a parametric study was carried out based on the Taguchi method with four kinds of thermoplastic materials, cyclic olefin copolymer (COC), polycarbonate (PC), polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA), and polystyrene (PS), which are the most commonly used in manufacturing microfluidic devices. As an application example of the developed system, a microfluidic device having a serpentine microchannel was fabricated via R2F texturing and subsequent thermal bonding. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.