Hybrid subtractive - additive femtosecond laser processing for 'ship-in-a-bottle' integration of 3D polymer patterns inside glass micro-channels for single cell monitoring

摘要

Polymeric micro and nanostructure pattern integration inside microfluidic systems offers concrete functionalities such as mechanical manipulation on both two-dimensional and three-dimensional (3D) environments, increase of sensitivity, optical visualization and eventually increase the performance of lab-on-a-chip devices. We propose herein the "ship-iira-bottle" concept based on a hybrid subtractive and additive femtosecond laser processing in order to integrate 3D polymer structures inside 3D glass micro-channels. It consists of femtosecond laser assisted wet etching of a photosensitive glass followed by two-photon polymerization of a negative epoxy resin which allows lowering the size limit to smaller details, to cell dimension or below. Both glass channels and polymeric integrated patterns can be 3D spatially designed for cell monitoring and analysis. The spatial control of resin solidification by photo - polymerization permits the design of linear or sinusoidal shaped channels used for cell guiding, live monitoring and analysis.