Direct optical patterning of poly(dimethylsiloxane) microstructures for microfluidic chips

Abstract

In this paper, we present an optical maskless exposure approach for direct patterning of large-area high resolution microfluidic chips using photosensitive poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) materials. Both positive- and negative-tone photosensitive PDMS (photoPDMS) were successfully patterned into various microfluidic devices with complex geometries by using an optical maskless lithography process. The positive-tone PDMS is used for patterning of largearea chips, while the negative-tone PDMS is demonstrated to fabricate high-resolution microstructures and on-chip devices. With the seamless pattern-stitching technique, a large-area microfluidic chip with size of 5.5 × 2.8 cm2 with complex three-dimensional (3D) staggered herringbone mixers (SHMs) for micro-flow gradient generation has been directly fabricated within 125 minutes by using the positive-tone PDMS. A small microfluidic chip with feature size as small as 5 μm is demonstrated by using the negative-tone PDMS. The experimental results reveal that the optical maskless lithography technology enables to rapidly pattern high-resolution microstructures and is very promising for development of lab-on-a-chip devices.