Fabrication of enclosed nanochannels in poly(methylmethacrylate) using proton beam writing and thermal bonding

Abstract

We report a technique for fabricating enclosed nanochannels in poly(methylmethacrylate) (PMMA) using proton beam writing coupled with thermal bonding. Using proton beam writing, straight-walled high-aspect-ratio channels can be directly fabricated through a relatively thick PMMA resist layer spin coated on a Kapton film. By thermally bonding the fabricated structures onto bulk PMMA, peeling off the Kapton substrate, and bonding the remaining exposed side to PMMA, enclosed high-aspect-ratio nano/microchannels can be fabricated. Such enclosed channels can be incorporated into fluidic polymeric devices, and the process is compatible with the fabrication of multilevel three-dimensional fluidic chips with vertical interconnects.

Effects of Micromachining Processes on Electro-Osmotic Flow Mobility of Glass Surfaces

“…In particular, nano fluidic devices that contain nano channels can be used for separation and filtration [21], single-molecule detection [22][23][24][25][26], highly efficient PCR [27], chemical analysis [28,29] and nano-photonic sensors [30], with great help of development of nanofabrication technologies [31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43]. As the channels are reduced in size, the surface roughness and surface chemistry become dominant in determining the dynamics of flow.…”

High-strength thermoplastic bonding for multi-channel, multi-layer lab-on-chip devices for ocean and environmental applications

“…2-20 min), the surface roughness first decreases then increases, with the lowest surface roughness (~2 μm) observed after 10 min. Although bond quality dependence on roughness at the nanoscale has been reported (Shao et al 2006), in this case the vapour-induced softening occurs to a depth of 20-50 microns, i.e. much deeper than the original roughness due to milling and therefore minimises the potential dependence of bond strength on roughness.…”

Fabrication of PMMA nanofluidic electrochemical chips with integrated microelectrodes

“…Several methods have been reported for fabricating polymer nanochannels, such as sacrificial etching (Eijkel et al, 2004), proton beam writing (Shao et al, 2006), focused-ion beam milling (Cannon et al, 2004) and a variety of replication techniques (Liu et al, 2013;Studer et al, 2002;Zhang et al, 2008). Meanwhile, a few methods have been explored to fabricate microelectrodes on polymer substrates, including electrode microchannel method (Rossier et al, 1999), shadow mask method (Chen et al, 2001), screen printing (Kadara et al, 2009), electroless plating (McCarley et al, 2005, and photolithography techniques (Illa et al, 2010;Liu et al, 2011).…”