Micro Machining of Injection Mold Inserts for Fluidic Channel of Polymeric Biochips

Abstract

Abstract:Recently, the polymeric micro-fluidic biochip, often called LOC (lab-on-a-chip), has been focused as a cheap, rapid and simplified method to replace the existing biochemical laboratory works. It becomes possible to form miniaturized lab functionalities on a chip with the development of MEMS technologies. The micro-fluidic chips contain many micro-channels for the flow of sample and reagents, mixing, and detection tasks. Typical substrate materials for the chip are glass and polymers. Typical techniques for micro-fluidic chip fabrication are utilizing various micro pattern forming methods, such as wet-etching, micro-contact printing, and hot-embossing, micro injection molding, LIGA, and micro powder blasting processes, etc. In this study, to establish the basis of the micro pattern fabrication and mass production of polymeric micro-fluidic chips using injection molding process, micro machining method was applied to form micro-channels on the LOC molds. In the research, a series of machining experiments using micro end-mills were performed to determine optimum machining conditions to improve surface roughness and shape accuracy of designed simplified micro-channels. Obtained conditions were used to machine required mold inserts for micro-channels using micro end-mills. Test injection processes using machined molds and COC polymer were performed, and then the results were investigated.

Dielectrophoresis in microfluidics technology

“…Moreover, the fabrication procedures are not suitable for mass production. One alternative to this issue can be the use of the polymer-based conductive materials as electrodes and the fabrication of the microfluidic devices using mechanical micromachining (milling, drilling), microinjection molding techniques [153,154]. Utilization of these techniques for the fabrication of the electrodes may lead to inexpensive and massive fabrication of DEP-based microfluidic systems.…”

condiCharacterisation of an Adhesive-free Packaging System for Polymeric Microfluidic Biochemical Devices and Reactors

“…2(b)), or they can be modified for custom-made interconnects if required. Such sockets for screw type fittings have previously been used in combination with injection moulded cyclic olefin copolymer (COC) microfluidic devices, 15 but this fabrication method is more amenable to mass fabrication than for rapid prototyping. In our system, due to its modularity, changes in the fitting/ interconnect types or changes in the chip design can be made independently and do not require a redesign of the entire device.…”

“…7,8 Low aspect ratio features can be easily produced via soft lithography techniques, [9][10][11][12] however, they require clean room access which can be costly. 13 Micro milling, or precision milling, 14,15 approaches are appealing for the fabrication of biochemical microdevices; micro milling offers a low budget and robust approach for the micromachining of moulds with different feature sizes, and its machinery is typically more accessible.…”

New vibration-assisted magnetic abrasive polishing (VAMAP) method for microstructured surface finishing

“…Besides, these technologies can fabricate steps on the surface of substrate. Jung et al used micro end-mills to machine mold inserts for fluidic channel of polymeric biochips [12]. Lee et al developed a miniaturized diamond tool to fabricate a Vgroove on the optical fiber connector [13].…”