Nickel Stamp Fabrication using SU-8 Lithography for Micro Hot-Embossing Serpentine Microfluidic Channels.

Abstract

Mass production of microfluidic devices is the need of the hour considering several applications. Among the various applications, particle inertial focusing is a prospective technique for separation of the particles using microfluidic devices. Serpentine channels have a great potential to utilise particle inertial focusing mechanism, owing to its capability of parallelisation compared to spiral channels. The devices for inertial focusing consist of different features like pillars, channels, and reservoirs where the features are ranging from micro to macro scale. Currently, the devices are fabricated using lithography techniques whose rate of production depends upon the lifespan of the silicon (Si)-master. This paper demonstrates a novel method for fabrication of nickel master used for the micro hot-embossing process on polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) sheets with micro features. The key parameters of hot-embossing in this study include temperature and pressure which are optimised accordingly.