Issue 8, 2013

Rapid fabrication of nickel molds for prototyping embossed plastic microfluidic devices

Abstract

The production of hot embossed plastic microfluidic devices is demonstrated in 1–2 h by exploiting vinyl adhesive stickers as masks for electroplating nickel molds. The sticker masks are cut directly from a CAD design using a cutting plotter and transferred to steel wafers for nickel electroplating. The resulting nickel molds are used to hot emboss a variety of plastic substrates, including cyclo-olefin copolymer and THV fluorinated thermoplastic elastomer. Completed devices are formed by bonding a blank sheet to the embossed layer using a solvent-assisted lamination method. For example, a microfluidic valve array or automaton and a droplet generator were fabricated with less than 100 μm xy plane feature resolution, to within 9% of the target height, and with 90 ± 11% height uniformity over 5 cm. This approach for mold fabrication, embossing, and bonding reduces fabrication time and cost for research applications by avoiding photoresists, lithography masks, and the cleanroom.

Graphical abstract: Rapid fabrication of nickel molds for prototyping embossed plastic microfluidic devices

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Technical Innovation
Submitted
11 Dec 2012
Accepted
12 Feb 2013
First published
18 Feb 2013

Lab Chip, 2013,13, 1468-1471

Rapid fabrication of nickel molds for prototyping embossed plastic microfluidic devices

R. Novak, N. Ranu and R. A. Mathies, Lab Chip, 2013, 13, 1468 DOI: 10.1039/C3LC41362D

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