Fabrication and Characterization of Polymer Microfluidic Devices for BioAgent Detection

摘要

Sandia and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories are developing a briefcase-sized, broad-spectrumbioagent detection system. This autonomous instrument, the BioBriefcase, will monitor the environmentand warn against bacterium, virus, and toxin based biological attacks. At the heart of this device,inexpensive polymer microfluidic chips will carry out sample preparation and analysis. Fabrication ofpolymer microfluidic chips involves the creation of a master in etched glass; plating of the master toproduce a nickel stamp; large lot chip replication by injection molding; and thermal chip sealing. Since theperformance and reliability of microfluidic chips are very sensitive to fluidic impedance and toelectromagnetic fluxes, the microchannel dimensions and shape have to be tightly controlled during chipfabrication. In this talk, we will present an overview of chip design and fabrication. Metrology datacollected at different fabrication steps and the dimensional deviations of the polymer chip from the originaldesign will be discussed.