A bonding-free process for fabricating integrated microfluidic devices with embedded electrodes utilizing low-cost UV curable resins

This paper presents a novel bonding-free process for fabricating integrated microfluidic devices with embedded electrodes utilizing low-cost UV curable resins. Commercial available UV glue is sandwiched between two substrates and is used for both the structure material and bonding adhesive. The pattern of micro-fluidic channels is defined using a standard lithography process while two substrates are bonded simultaneously during the exposure procedure. Once the pattern is defined, the un-cured UV glue was removed by vacuum suction to form the sealed microfluidic channel. With this simple approach, conventional bonding processes can be excluded for fabricating sealed microfluidic structures such that the developed method is essential for fabricating microchip devices with embedded electrodes. The thickness of the formed structures can be up to millimeter range and the smallest channel width is around 80 um (aspect ratio = 2). The overall process to fabricate sealed microchip device is less than 10 min since no time-consuming etching and bonding process in the developed process. An innovative micro-reactor integrated with in-channel micro-plasma generator for real-time chemical reaction analysis is fabricated using the developed process. On-line mass-spectrum (MS) detection of an esterfication reaction is successfully demonstrated which resulting a fast, label-free, preparation-free analysis of chemical samples. The developed process has shown its potentials for rapid and low-cost microdevice manufacturing.