玻璃微流控芯片廉价快速制作方法的研究

Study on a Low-cost and Fast Fabrication Method of Glass Microfluidic Chips

研究了一种玻璃微流控芯片的快速、低成本制作工艺和方法.该方法采用商品化的显微载玻片(soda-lime玻璃)作为芯片基质材料,利用AZ4620光刻胶代替传统工艺中的溅射金属层或多晶硅/氮化硅层作为玻璃刻蚀的掩膜层,同时利用一种紫外光学胶键合方法代替传统熔融键合方法实现芯片的键合,整个工艺对玻璃基质材料要求低,普通微流控芯片(深度小于50μm)制作流程仅需约3.5h,可降低制作成本,缩短制作周期.还系统地研究了光刻胶厚度、光刻胶硬烘时间和玻璃腐蚀液配比对玻璃微流控芯片制作的影响,获得了优化的工艺参数.

This paper describes a low-cost, fast process for the fabrication of glass microfluidic chips, in which commercially-available microscope glass slides （soda-lime glass） were used as substrate materials, and a layer of AZ 4620 positive photoresist was used as an etch mask for buffered oxide etching of soda-lime glass instead of using an expensive metal or polysilicon/nitride layer. Meanwhile, a fast but reliable UV-bonding process was developed to seal the channels rather than utilizing thermal fusion bonding. The whole process for most microfluidic devices （〈50μm in depth） could be done within 3.5 h, which greatly decreases the time and cost of the fabrication of the glass microfluidic devices. Here the effects of the thickness of the photoresist, hardbake time and ratio of BOE on the fabrication of the glass microfluidic chips were also systemically investigated. Some optimum parameters were achieved for the fabrication process.