Rapid Prototyping of 3D Nanofluidic Systems in Glass Substrates

描述（由申请人提供）：我们最近开发了一种使用飞秒脉冲激光在硬材料中进行纳米加工的方法（Joglekar等人，2003,2004），我们最近将其扩展到玻璃基板中三维（3D）地下纳米流控和微流控网络的快速生产。本提案的总体目标是应用这种独特的能力来制造极高密度和增强功能的微纳米流体装置，用于生物医学诊断和生化分析。据我们所知，这是首次在玻璃微流体中实现三维复杂性，精度在10纳米量级。我们假设各种新的生物分析和药物传递系统可能被制造用于医学诊断、纯化、测序和蛋白质组学分析。R21提案的总体目标是积极探索这种纳米加工技术的局限性，系统地探索以这种方式构建的纳米通道内生物分子的运输，并开发至少一个具有令人信服的表征数据的高度集成系统。提出的研究计划是独特的，可能会产生非常大的影响，因为它使全新的微纳米流体装置不再局限于二维几何形状或多层聚合物材料。具体目标是：1 .确定三维飞秒加工在微纳米流体应用中的物理和实际限制；2 .深入探索三维飞秒激光加工微纳米通道中的流动和传输；3 .利用三维纳米加工快速制作高密度流动控制组件和集成分析设备的原型。这个目标的总体目标是创建一个令人信服的演示使用的流动控制工具箱的微流体在玻璃基板，可用于微阵列，微分离，或微药物输送系统。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): We recently developed a method for nanomachining in hard materials using a femtosecond pulsed laser (Joglekar et al., 2003, 2004), which we have recently extended to the rapid production of three-dimensional (3D) subsurface nanofluidic and microfluidic networks in glass substrates. The overall aim of this proposal is to apply this unique capability to fabricate extremely high density and increased functionality micro- and nanofluidic devices for biomedical diagnostics and biochemical analysis. To our knowledge, this is the first time that three-dimensional complexity, with precision on the order of ten nanometers, has been available for glass microfluidics. We hypothesize that a variety of novel bioanalysis and drug-delivery systems may be fabricated for applications in medical diagnostics, purification, sequencing, and proteomic analysis. The overall aim of this R21 proposal is to aggressively explore the limits of this nanomachining technique, methodically explore transport of biomolecules within nanochannels constructed in this manner, and develop at least one highly integrated system with compelling characterization data. The proposed plan of research is unique and potentially of very high impact in that it enables entirely new classes of micro- and nanofluidic devices that are no longer limited to either two-dimensional geometries or multiple layers of polymer materials. Specific Aims are 1: Determine the physical and practical limits of 3-D femtosecond machining for micro- and nanofluidics applications 2: Thoroughly explore flow and transport in 3D femtosecond laser-machined micro- and nanochannels 3: Employ 3D nanomachining to rapidly prototype high-density flow control components and integrated analysis devices. The overall goal of this aim is to create a compelling demonstration of the use of a flow- control toolbox for microfluidics in glass substrates that could be used for microarray, microseparations, or micro-drug delivery systems.