Microgasketing and adhesive wicking techniques for fabrication of microfluidic devices

Abstract

Microgasketing procedure, developed for MEMS fluidic device fabrication, is described. Planarprocessed microdevices of a volume even less than 1 ni can be selectively filled with liquid and sealed at room temperature in a batch fashion. Isolating a liquid within such a small device area by the gasketing and minimizing air traps during sealing by controlled wicking are the key issues addressed. Two unique microdevices made possible by the described technique are presented: 1) a microrelay switched by a liquidmetal droplet (10 im in diameter), and 2) a highly efficient (e.g., power consumption < 10 iW with driving potential < 10 V) liquid micromotor driven by surface tension force.

Dye-based photonic sensing systems

“…Implementing wafer-level packaging can reduce the cost and allow very high integration densities for the complete system. Currently, low temperature waferlevel packaging methods predominately use polymer adhesives such as UV curable resins [8], BCB [9] and underfills [10][11][12]. However, dye thin-films can be affected when they get into contact with polymers or solvents that are typically used for wafer-level packaging.…”