Abstract
Polymers such as PMMA are emerging as the materials of choice for lab-on-a-chip (LoC) because of their low cost of manufacture and optical transparency. An important characteristic of substrates for LoC devices is their surface wettability, which controls the flow characteristics in microfluidic channels. Despite the great potential offered by LoC devices, their commercial exploitation has been slow thus far. One breakthrough that could promote the adoption of the LoC platform is a microfabrication technology with low-cost rapid prototyping capabilities. We describe how femtosecond laser micromachining, a direct write fabrication method, can be applied to selectively tailor the wettability of PMMA for the realization of important microfluidic functions.
© 2011 Optical Society of America
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