Rapid prototyping of glass microfluidic chips

Abstract

In academia the rapid and flexible creation of microfluidic chips is of great importance for microfluidic research. Besides polymers glass is a very important material especially when high chemical and temperature resistance are required. However, glass structuring is a very hazardous process which is not accessible to most members of the microfluidic community. We therefore sought a new method for the rapid and simple creation of transparent microfluidic glass chips by structuring and sintering amorphous silica suspensions. The whole process from a digital mask layout to a microstructured glass sheet can be done within two days. In this paper we show the applicability of this process to fabricate capillary driven microfluidic systems.